Characters
Vivian
The advocate of lying
Vivian prefers the library to the open air and is correcting the proofs of his article 'The Decay of Lying: A Protest'. He belongs to the Tired Hedonists, a club that admits nobody 'of the usual age', and delights in paradox and inconsistency: 'Who wants to be consistent?' He says he is 'prepared to prove anything', and he carries every argument to its extreme, from the decay of the novel to the claim that London's fogs were invented by painters.
Cyril
The sceptical listener
Cyril comes in from the terrace wanting to lie on the grass and smoke, and Vivian teases him for being too fond of simple pleasures to join his club. He likes Robert Elsmere and Japanese things, and he interrupts the reading to object, to defend his favourite novels and to ask what Vivian really means. His questions drive the argument forward, and his dry replies, such as being convinced 'to my dissatisfaction', keep it light.