Page:Tales of the Jazz Age.djvu/329



ANOTHER CHILD: I care not who hoes the lettuce of my country if I can eat the salad!

ALL: Life! Psychic Research! Jazz!

MR. ICKY: (Struggling with himself) I must be quaint. That's all there is. It's not life that counts, it's the quaintness you bring to it....

ALL: We're going to slide down the Riviera. We've got tickets for Piccadilly Circus. Life! Jazz!

MR. ICKY: Wait. Let me read to you from the Bible. Let me open it at random. One always finds something that bears on the situation.

(He finds a Bible lying in one of the dods and opening it at random begins to read.)

"Ahab and Istemo and Anim, Goson and Olon and Gilo, eleven cities and their villages. Arab, and Ruma, and Esaau&mdash;"

CHARLES: (Cruelly) Buy ten more rings and try again.

MR. ICKY: (Trying again) "How beautiful art thou my love, how beautiful art thou! Thy eyes are dove's eyes, besides what is hid within. Thy hair is as flocks of goats which come up from Mount Galaad&mdash;Hm! Rather a coarse passage...."

(His children laugh at him rudely, shouting "Jazz!" and "All life is primarily suggestive!")

MR. ICKY: (Despondently) It won't work to-day. (Hopefully) Maybe it's damp. (He feels it) Yes, it's damp.... There was water in the dod.... It won't work.

ALL: It's damp! It won't work! Jazz!

ONE OF THE CHILDREN: Come, we must catch the six-thirty.

(Any other cue may be inserted here.)

MR. ICKY: Good-by....

( They all go out. MR. ICKY is left alone. He