How? In virtue of his post
The Offering is not what he has to bring
But what he has to get.

MRS. STRAWMAN [looking towards the background].
They're sitting there.

FALK [after staring a moment in amazement suddenly
understands and bursts out laughing.].
Hurrah for Offerings--the ones that caper
And strut--on Holy-days--in bulging paper!

STRAWMAN.
All the year round the curb and bit we bear,
But Whitsuntide and Christmas make things square.

FALK [gaily].
Why then, provided only there's enough of it,
Even family-founders will obey their Calls.

STRAWMAN.
Of course; a man assured the _quantum suff_ of it
Will preach the Gospel to the cannibals.
[Sotto voce.
Now I must see if she cannot be led,
[To one of the little girls.
My little Mattie, fetch me out my head--
My pipe-head I should say, my little dear--
[Feels in his coat-tail pocket.
Nay, wait a moment tho': I have it here.

[Goes across and fills his pipe, followed by his
wife and children.

GULDSTAD [approaching].
You seem to play the part of serpent in
This paradise of lovers.

FALK.
O, the pips
Upon the tree of knowledge are too green
To be a lure for anybody's lips.
[To LIND, who comes in from the right.
Ha, Lind!

LIND.
In heaven's name, who's been ravaging
Our sanctum? There the lamp lies dashed
To pieces, curtain dragged to floor, pen smashed,
And on the mantelpiece the ink pot splashed--

FALK [clapping him on the shoulder].
This wreck's the first announcement of my spring;
No more behind drawn curtains I will sit,
Making pen poetry with lamp alit;
My dull domestic poetising's done,
I'll walk by day, and glory in the sun:
My spring is come, my soul has broken free,
Action henceforth shall be my poetry.

LIND.
Make poetry of what you please for me;
But how if Mrs. Halm should take amiss
Your breaking of her furniture to pieces?

FALK.
What!--she, who lays her daughters and her nieces
Upon the altar of her boarders' bliss,--
She frown at such a bagatelle as this?

LIND [angrily].
It's utterly outrageous and unfair,
And compromises me as well as you!
But that's her business, settle it with her.
The lamp was mine, tho', shade and burner too--

FALK.
Tut, on that head, I've no account to render;
You have God's summer sunshine in its splendour,--
What would yo