ned
That it was Claude, whom I have been expecting.
I have arranged that you shall have this room
All to yourself and friends. Now I must leave you.
I have to go and speak to Campbell Dodgson
About some prints we've recently acquired.

STEPHEN PHILLIPS. How can I ever thank you? Love to Binyon!

[COLVIN _goes out_.

_Enter_ Mr. GEORGE ALEXANDER, GOETHE, MARLOWE, GOUNOD.

ALEXANDER (_from force of habit_). I always told you he was reasonable.

GOETHE. Well, I consent. Mein Gott! how colossal
You English are! 'Tis nigh impossible
For poets to refuse you anything,
And German thought beneath some English shade--
_Unter den Linden_, as we say at home--
Sounds really quite as well on British soil.
Our good friend Marlowe hardly seems so pleased.

MARLOWE. Oh, Goethe! cease these frivolous remarks.
Think you that I, who knew Elizabeth,
And tasted all the joys of literature
And played the dawn to Shakespeare's larger day,
And heralded a mighty line of verse
With half-a-dozen mighty lines my own,
Am feeling well?

GOUNOD (_brightening_). Ah! Monsieur Wells,
Auteur d'une histoire fine et romanesque
Traduit par Davray; il a des idees
C'est une chose rare la-bas . . .

STEPHEN PHILLIPS. He does not speak of Huysmans; 'tis myself.
I thank you, gentlemen, with all my heart;
I thank you, gentlemen, with all my soul;
I thank you, sirs, with all my soul and strength.
So for your leave much thanks. You know my weakness:
I love to be at peace with all the past.
The present and the future I can manage;
The stirrup of posterity may dangle
Against the heaving flanks of Pegasus.
I feel my spurs against the saucy mare
And Alexander turned Bucephalus.

MARLOWE. Neigh! Neigh! though you have told us what you are,
And we have witnessed Nero several times,
You do not tell us of this wretched Faustus,
Who must be damned in any case, I fear.

S. P. Of course, I treat you as material
On which to work; but then I simplify
And purify the story for our stage.
The English stage is nothing if not pure.
For instance, we will not allow _Salome_.
So in Act II. of _Faust_ I represent
The marriage feast of beauteous Margaret;
Act I. I get from Goethe, III. from Marlowe,
And Gounod's music fills the gaps in mine.
Margaret, of course, will never come to grief.
She only gets a separation order.
By the advice of Plowden magistrate,
She undertakes to wean Euphorion,
Who in his bounding habit symbolises
The future glories