Page:Tales of the Jazz Age.djvu/322

 MR. ICKY

THE QUINTESSENCE OF QUAINTNESS IN ONE ACT

The Scene is the Exterior of a Cottage in West Issacshire on a desperately Arcadian afternoon in August. MR. ICKY, ''quaintly dressed in the costume of an Elizabethan peasant, is pottering and doddering among the pots and dods. He is an old man, well past the prime of life, no longer young, From the fact that there is a burr in his speech and that he has absent-mindedly put on his coat wrongside out, we surmise that he is either above or below the ordinary superficialities of life.''

Near him on the grass lies PETER, a little boy. PETER, of course, has his chin on his palm like the pictures ''of the young Sir Walter Raleigh. He has a complete set of features,'' including serious, sombre, even funereal, gray eyes&mdash;and radiates that ''alluring air of never having eaten food. This air can best be radiated'' ''during the afterglow of a beef dinner. Be is looking at MR. ICKY, fascinated.''

''Silence. . . . The song of birds.''

PETER: Often at night I sit at my window and regard the stars. Sometimes I think they're my stars.... (Gravely) I think I shall be a star some day....

ME. ICKY: (Whimsically) Yes, yes ... yes....

PETER: I know them all: Venus, Mars, Neptune, Gloria Swanson.