hic 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--"

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--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 sighs and
walking over to the cottage steps, lies down, and closes his eyes._)

_Twilight has come down and the stage is flooded with such light as
never was on land or sea. There is no sound except a sheep-herder's
wife in the distance playing an aria from Beethoven's Tenth Symphony,
on a mouth-organ. The great white and gray moths swoop down and light
on the old man until he is completely covered by them. But he does not
stir._

_The curtain goes up and down several times to denote the lapse of
several minutes. A good comedy effect can be obtained by having
_MR. ICKY_ cling to the curtain and go up and down with it.
Fireflies or fairies on wires can also be introduced at this
point._

_Then _PETER_ appears, a look of almost imbecile sweetness on
his face. In his hand he clutches something and from time to time
glances at it in a transport of ecstasy. After a struggle with himself
he lays it on the old man's body and then quietly withdraws._

_The moths chatter among themselves and then scurry away in sudden
fright. And as night deepens there still sparkles th