difficulty of getting songs printed unless you paid for them, of their
wretched sales.

'But those songs you've been playing,' said Beverley, 'they've been
published?'

'Yes, those three. But they are the only ones.'

'And didn't they sell?'

'Hardly at all. You see, a song doesn't sell unless somebody well known
sings it. And people promise to sing them, and then don't keep their
word. You can't depend on what they say.'

'Give me their names,' said Beverley, 'and I'll go round tomorrow and
shoot the whole lot. But can't you do anything?'

'Only keep on keeping on.'

'I wish,' he said, 'that any time you're feeling blue about things you
would come up and pour out the poison on me. It's no good bottling it
up. Come up and tell me about it, and you'll feel ever so much better.
Or let me come down. Any time things aren't going right just knock on
the ceiling.'

She laughed.

'Don't rub it in,' pleaded Beverley. 'It isn't fair. There's nobody so
sensitive as a reformed floor-knocker. You will come up or let me come
down, won't you? Whenever I have that sad, depressed feeling, I go out