Now Lancelot by this time was aware of the publisher’s wily ways; he could almost have constructed an Ollendorffian dialogue, entitled “Between a Music Publisher and a Composer.”  So he opened his portfolio again and said, “I have brought some.”

“Well, send—­send them in,” stammered the publisher, almost disconcerted.  “They shall have our best consideration.”

“Oh, but you might just as well look over them at once,” said Lancelot, firmly, uncoiling them.  “It won’t take you five minutes—­just let me play one to you.  The tunes are rather more original than the average, I can promise you; and yet I think they have a lilt that—­”

“I really can’t spare the time now.  If you leave them, we will do our best.”

“Listen to this bit!” said Lancelot, desperately.  And dashing at a piano that stood handy, he played a couple of bars.  “That’s quite a new modulation.”

“That’s all very well,” said the publisher; “but how do you suppose I’m going to sell a thing with an accompaniment like that?  Look here, and here!  Why, it’s all accidentals.”

“That’s the best part of the song,” explained Lancelot; “a sort of undercurrent of emotion that brings out the full pathos of the words.  Note the elegant and novel harmonies.”  He played another bar or two, singing the words softly.

“Yes; but if you think you’ll get young ladies to play that, you’ve got a good deal to learn,” said the publisher, gruffly.  “This is the sort of accompaniment that goes down,” and seating himself at the piano for a moment (somewhat to Lancelot’s astonishment, for he had gradually formed a theory that music publishers did not really know the staff from a five-barred gate), he rattled off the melody with his right hand, pounding away monotonously with his left at a few elementary chords.

Lancelot looked dismayed.

“That’s the kind of thing you’ll have to produce, young man,” said the publisher, feeling that he had at last resumed his natural supremacy, “if you want to get your songs published.  Elegant harmonies are all very well, but who’s to play them?”

“And do you mean to say that a musician in this God-forsaken country must have no chords but tonics and dominants?” ejaculated Lancelot, hotly.

“The less he has of any other the better,” said the great man, drily.  “I haven’t said a word about the melody itself, which is quite out of the ordinary compass, and makes demands upon the singer’s vocalisation which are not likely to make a demand for the song.  What you have to remember, my dear sir, if you wish to achieve success, is that music, if it is to sell, must appeal to the average amateur young person.  The average amateur young person is the main prop of music in this country.”

Lancelot snatched up his song and tied the strings of his portfolio very tightly, as if he were clenching his lips.

“If I stay here any longer I shall swear,” he said.  “Good afternoon.”