Page:Tales of the Jazz Age.djvu/327



DIVINE: (Morosely) Gotch.

ULSA: Dempsey.

DIVINE: We were arguing that if they were deadly enemies and locked in a room together which one would come out alive. Now I claimed that Jack Dempsey would take one&mdash;

ULSA: (Angrily) Rot! He wouldn't have a&mdash;

DIVINE: (Quickly) You win.

ULSA: Then I love you again.

MR. ICKY: So I'm going to lose my little daughter...

ULSA: You've still got a houseful of children,

(CHARLES, ULSA'S brother, coming out of the cottage. He is dressed as if to go to sea; a coil of rope is slung about his shoulder and an anchor is hanging from his neck.)

CHARLES: (Not seeing them) I'm going to sea! I'm going to sea!

(His voice is triumphant.)

MR. ICKY: (Sadly) You went to seed long ago.

CHARLES: I've been reading "Conrad."

PETER: (Dreamily) "Conrad," ah! "Two Years Before the Mast," by Henry James.

CHARLES: What?

PETER: Walter Pater's version of "Robinson Crusoe."

CHARLES: (To his feyther) I can't stay here and rot with you. I want to live my life. I want to hunt eels.

MR. ICKY: I will be here... when you come back....

CHARLES: (Contemptuously) Why, the worms are licking their chops already when they hear your name.

(It will be noticed that some of the characters have not spoken for some time. It will improve the technique if they can be rendering a spirited saxophone number.)

MR. ICKY: (Mournfully) These vales, these hills,