_
_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.
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