Only there seems more sense in betting,
somehow.
DE REVES: Well, yes. I suppose it's easier to tell what an earthly horse
is going to do, than to tell what Pegasus----
PRATTLE: What's Pegasus?
DE REVES: Oh, the winged horse of poets.
PRATTLE: I say! You don't believe in a winged horse, do you?
DE REVES: In our trade we believe in all fabulous things. They all
represent some large truth to us. An emblem like Pegasus is as real a
thing to a poet as a Derby winner would be to you.
PRATTLE: I say. (Give me a cigarette. Thanks.) What? Then you'd believe
in nymphs and fauns, and Pan, and all those kind of birds?
DE REVES: Yes. Yes. In all of them.
PRATTLE: Good Lord!
DE REVES: You believe in the Lord Mayor of London, don't you?
PRATTLE: Yes, of course; but what has----
DE REVES: Four million people or so made him Lord Mayor, didn't they?
And he represents to them the wealth and dignity and tradition of----
PRATTLE: Yes; but, I say, what has all this----
DE REVES: Well, he stands for an idea to them, and they made him Lord
Mayor, and so he is one....
PRATTLE: Well, of course he is.
DE REVES: In the same way Pan has been made what he is by millions; by
millions to whom he represents world-old traditions.
PRATTLE (_rising from his chair and stepping backwards, laughing and
looking at the_ POET _in a kind of assumed wonder_): I say .
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