LES: (_Not seeing them_) I'm going to sea! I'm going to sea!

(_His voice is triumphant._)

MR. ICKY: (_Sadly_) You went to seed long ago.

CHARLES: I've been reading "Conrad."

PETER: (_Dreamily_) "Conrad," ah! "Two Years Before the Mast," by
Henry James.

CHARLES: What?

PETER: Walter Pater's version of "Robinson Crusoe."

CHARLES: (_To his feyther_) I can't stay here and rot with you. I
want to live my life. I want to hunt eels.

MR. ICKY: I will be here... when you come back....

CHARLES: (_Contemptuously_) Why, the worms are licking their
chops already when they hear your name.

(_It will be noticed that some of the characters have not spoken for
some time. It will improve the technique if they can be rendering a
spirited saxophone number._)

MR. ICKY: (_Mournfully_) These vales, these hills, these
McCormick harvesters--they mean nothing to my children. I understand.

CHARLES: (_More gently_) Then you'll think of me kindly, feyther.
To understand is to forgive.

MR. ICKY: No...no....We never forgive those we can understand....We
can only forgive those who wound us for no reason at all....

CHARLES: (_Impatiently_) I'm so beastly sick of your human nature
line. And, anyway, I hate the hours around here.

(_Several dozen more of _MR. ICKY'S_ children trip out of the
house, trip over the grass, and trip over the pots and dods. They are
muttering "We are going away," and "We are leaving you."_)

MR. ICKY: (_His heart breaking_) They're all deserting me. I've
been too kind. Spare the rod and spoil the fun. Oh, for the glands of
a Bismarck.

(_There is a honking outside--probably _DIVINE'S_ chauffeur
growing impatient for his master._)

MR. ICKY: (_In misery_) They do not love the soil! They have been
faithless to the Great Potato Tradition! (_He picks up a handful of
soil passionately and rubs it on his bald head. Hair sprouts._) Oh,
Wordsworth, Wordsworth, how true you spoke!

_"No motion has she now, no force;
She does not hear or feel;
Roll'd round on earth's diurnal course
In some one's Oldsmobile."_

(_They all groan and shouting "Life" and "Jazz" move slowly toward
the wings._)

CHARLES: Back to the soil, yes! I've been trying to turn my back to
the soil for ten years!

ANOTHER CHILD: The farmers may be the backbone of the country, but who
wants to be a backbone?

ANOTHER CHILD: I care not who hoes the lettuce of my country if I can
eat the salad!

ALL: Life! Psyc