Glad. But you denounce them.
Peter. What I denounce is luxury for the few and penury for the many. We want to level up, not level down.
Glad. I've heard something like that before.
Peter. Probably. It's not my business to be original. If I tried to be lofty I'd be talking above the heads of my audiences.
Glad, (puzzled). I wonder how much is sincere!
Peter. Sincere? I'm a professional advocate. I take a tiny grain of truth, dress it up in a pompous parade of rhetoric and deliver it in the manner of an oracle and the accent of a cheapjack. It's a question of making my points tell. Sincerity doesn't matter.
Glad, (rising). If I turned myself into a human gramophone, I shouldn't boast about it, Mr. Garside. It's not very creditable to live by fooling the public.
Peter (rising). Creditable? If I fooled them from Fleet Street they'd make me a peer. The public likes to be fooled. They know I'm fooling them. They pay me to go on fooling them. Some men live by selling adulterated beer. I live by selling adulterated truth.
Glad. And neither makes an honest livelihood.
Peter. No, neither your father the brewer, nor I the demagogue. But I'm being frank with you, Miss Mottram. Between us two there's not to be pretence.