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 love's divining-rod, my friend!
Miss Jay it was that taught me where to bore,
My _fiancee_--she became so in the end--
Fo
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