JOHNNY. _[handsomely]_ I'm not saying anything against you,
Governor. But I do say that the time has come for sane, healthy,
unpretending men like me to make a stand against this conspiracy of
the writing and talking and artistic lot to put us in the back row.
It isnt a fact that we're inferior to them: it's a put-up job; and
it's they that have put the job up. It's we that run the country for
them; and all the thanks we get is to be told we're Philistines and
vulgar tradesmen and sordid city men and so forth, and that theyre all
angels of light and leading. The time has come to assert ourselves
and put a stop to their stuck-up nonsense. Perhaps if we had nothing
better to do than talking or writing, we could do it better than they.
Anyhow, theyre the failures and refuse of business (hardly a man of
them that didnt begin in an office) and we're the successes of it.
Thank God I havnt failed yet at anything; and I dont believe I should
fail at literature if it would pay me to turn my hand to it.

BENTLEY. Hear, hear!

MRS TARLETON. Fancy you writing a book, Johnny! Do you think he
could, Lord Summerhays?

LORD SUMMERHAYS. Why not? As a matter of fact all the really
prosperous authors I have met since my return to England have been
very like him.

TARLETON. _[again impressed]_ Thats an idea. Thats a new idea. I
believe I ought to have made Johnny an author. Ive never said so
before for fear of hurting his feelings, because, after all, the lad
cant help it; but Ive never thought Johnny worth tuppence as a man of
business.