LY BORN. Oh no. I want you. I love you.

STREPHON. I love someone else. And she has gone old, old. Lost to me for
ever.

THE HE-ANCIENT. How old?

STREPHON. You saw her when you barged into us as we were dancing. She is
four.

THE NEWLY BORN. How I should have hated her twenty minutes ago! But I
have grown out of that now.

THE HE-ANCIENT. Good. That hatred is called jealousy, the worst of our
childish complaints.

_Martellus, dusting his hands and puffing, returns from the grove._

MARTELLUS. Ouf! [_He sits down next the Newly Born_] That job's
finished.

ARJILLAX. Ancients: I should like to make a few studies of you. Not
portraits, of course: I shall idealize you a little. I have come to the
conclusion that you ancients are the most interesting subjects after
all.

MARTELLUS. What! Have those two horrors, whose ashes I have just
deposited with peculiar pleasure in poor Pygmalion's dustbin, not cured
you of this silly image-making!

ARJILLAX. Why did you model them as young things, you fool? If Pygmalion
had come to me, I should have made ancients of them for him. Not that I
should have modelled them any better. I have always said that no one
can beat you at your best as far as handwork is concerned. But this job
required brains. That is where I should have come in.

MARTELLUS. Well, my brainy boy, you are welcome to try your hand. There
are two of Pygmalion's pupils at the laboratory who helped him to
manufacture the bones and tissues and all the rest of it. They can turn
out a couple of new automatons; and you can model them as ancients if
this venerable pair will sit for you.

ECRASIA [_decisively_] No. No more automata. They are too disgusting.

ACIS [_returning from the temple_] Well, thats done. Poor old Pyg!

ECRASIA. Only fancy, Acis! Arjillax wants to make more of those
abominable things, and to destroy even their artistic character by
making ancients of them.

THE NEWLY BORN. You wont sit for them, will you? Please dont.

THE HE-ANCIENT. Children, listen.

ACIS [_striding down the steps to the bench and seating himself next
Ecrasia_] What! Even the Ancient wants to make a speech! Give it mouth,
O Sage.

STREPHON. For heaven's sake don't tell us that the earth was once
inhabited by Ozymandiases and Cleopatras. Life is hard enough for us as
it is.

THE HE-ANCIENT. Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take
courage: it can be delightful. What I wanted to tell you is that ever
sin