Act First - Page 2

CHORUS.

I have plucked the flower, etc.
[They clink and empty their glasses.

FALK [to the ladies].
There--that's the song you asked me for; but pray
Be lenient to it--I can't think to-day.

GULDSTAD.
Oh, never mind the sense--the sound's the thing.

MISS JAY [looking round].
But Svanhild, who was eagerest to hear--?
When Falk began, she suddenly took wing
And vanished--

ANNA [pointing towards the back].
No, for there she sits--I see her.

MRS. HALM [sighing].
That child! Heaven knows, she's past my comprehending!

MISS JAY.
But, Mr. Falk, I thought the lyric's ending
Was not so rich in--well, in poetry,
As others of the stanzas seemed to be.

STIVER.
Why yes, and I am sure it could not tax
Your powers to get a little more inserted--

FALK [clinking glasses with him].
You cram it in, like putty into cracks,
Till lean is into streaky fat converted.

STIVER [unruffled].
Yes, nothing easier--I, too, in my day
Could do the trick.

GULDSTAD.
Dear me! Were you a poet?

MISS JAY.
My Stiver! Yes!

STIVER.
Oh, in a humble way.

MISS JAY [to the ladies].
His nature is romantic.

MRS. HALM.
Yes, we know it.

STIVER.
Not now; it's ages since I turned a rhyme.

FALK.
Yes varnish and romance go off with time.
But in the old days--?

STIVER.
Well, you see, 'twas when
I was in love.

FALK.
Is that time over, then?
Have you slept off the sweet intoxication?

STIVER.
I'm now engaged--I hold official station--
That's better than in love, I apprehend!

FALK.
Quite so! You're in the right my good old friend.
The worst is past--vous voila bien avance--
Promoted from mere lover to fiance.

STIVER [with a smile of complacent recollection].
It's strange to think of it--upon my word,
I half suspect my memory of lying--
[Turns to FALK.
But seven years ago--it sounds absurd!--
I wasted office hours in versifying.

FALK.
What! Office hours--!

STIVER.
Yes, such were my transgressions.

GULDSTAD [ringing on his glass].
Silence for our solicitor's confessions!

STIVER.
But chiefly after five, when I was free,
I'd rattle off whole reams of poetry--
Ten--fifteen folios ere I went to bed--

FALK.
I see--you gave your Pegasus his head,
And off he tore--

STIVER.
On stamped or unstamped paper--
'Twas all the same to him--he'd prance and caper--

FALK.
The spring of poetry flowed no less flush?
But how, pray, did you teach it first to gush?

STIVER.
By aid of