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--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.

MR. ICKY: I don't take no stock in astronomy.... I've been thinking o'
Lunnon, laddie. And calling to mind my daughter, who has gone for to
be a typewriter.... (_He sighs._)

PETER: I liked Ulsa, Mr. Icky; she was so plump, so round, so buxom.

MR. ICKY: Not worth the paper she was padded with, laddie. (_He
stumbles over a pile of pots and dods._)

PETER: How is your asthma, Mr. Icky?

MR. ICKY: Worse, thank God!...(_Gloomily.)_ I'm a hundred years
old... I'm getting brittle.

PETER: I suppose life has been pretty tame since you gave up petty
arson.

MR. ICKY: Yes... yes.... You see, Peter, laddie, when I was fifty I
reformed once--in prison.

PETER: You went wrong again?

MR. ICKY: Worse than that. The week before my term expired they
insisted on transferring to me the glands of a healthy young prisoner
they were executing.

PETER: And it renovated you?

MR. ICKY: Renovated me! It put the Old Nick back into me! This young
criminal was evidently a suburban burglar and a kleptomaniac. What was
a little playful arson in comparison!

PETER: (_Awed_) How ghastly! Science is the bunk.

MR. ICKY: (_Sighing_) I got him pretty well subdued now. 'Tisn't
every one who has to tire out two sets o' glands in his lifetime. I
wouldn't take another set for all the animal spirits in an orphan
asylum.

PETER: (_Considering_) I shouldn't think you'd object to a nice
quiet old clergyman's set.

MR. ICKY: Clergy