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- Are you there again? This is most accursed!
- Now they're throwing fruit. No, it's something else.
- A loathsome beast is your Barbary ape!
- The Scripture says: Thou shalt watch and fight.
- But I'm blest if I can; I am heavy and tired.
- [Is again attacked; impatiently:]
- I must put a stopper upon this nuisance!
- I must see and get hold of one of these scamps,
- get him hung and skinned, and then dress myself up,
- as best I may, in his shaggy hide,
- that the others may take me for one of themselves.-
- What are we mortals? Motes, no more;
- and it's wisest to follow the fashion a bit.-
- Again a rabble! They throng and swarm.
- Off with you! Shoo! They go on as though crazy.
- If only I had a false tail to put on now,-
- only something to make me a bit like a beast.-
- What now? There's a pattering over my head-!
- [Looks up.]
- It's the grandfather ape,-with his fists full of filth-!
[Huddles together apprehensively, and keeps still for a while. The ape makes a motion; PEER GYNT begins coaxing and wheedling him, as he might a dog.]
- Ay,-are you there, my good old Bus!
- He's a good beast, he is! He will listen to reason!
- He wouldn't throw;-I should think not, indeed!
- It is me! Pip-pip! We are first-rate friends!
- Ai-ai! Don't you hear, I can talk your language?
- Bus and I, we are kinsfolk, you see;-
