Lancelot frowned. "Then you had no difficulty in getting published?" he asked.
"I don't say that. It was bribery and corruption so far as my first song was concerned. I tipped a professional to go down and tell Brahmson he was going to take it up. You know, of course, well-known singers get half a guinea from the publisher every time they sing a song."
"No; do they?" said Lancelot. "How mean of them."
"Business, my boy. It pays the publisher to give it them. Look at the advertisement!"
"But suppose a really fine song was published and the publisher refused to pay this blood-money?"
"Then I suppose they'd sing some other song, and let that moulder on the foolish publisher's shelves."
"Great heavens!" said Lancelot, jumping up from the piano in wild excitement. "Then a musician's reputation is really at the mercy of a mercenary crew of singers, who respect neither art nor themselves. Oh yes, we are indeed a musical people!"
"Easy there! Several of 'em are pals of mine, and I'll get them to take up those ballads of yours as soon as you write 'em."
"Let them go to the devil with their ballads!" roared Lancelot, and with a sweep of his arm whirled Good-night and good-bye into the air. Peter picked it up and wrote something on it with a stylographic pen which he produced from his waistcoat pocket.
"There!" he said, "that'll make you remember it's your own property—and mine—that you are treating so disrespectfully."