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. ICKY: Worse than that. The week before my term expired they insisted on transferring to me the glands of a healthy young prisoner they were executing.
PETER: And it renovated you?
MR. ICKY: Renovated me! It put the Old Nick back into me! This young criminal was evidently a suburban burglar and a kleptomaniac. What was a little playful arson in comparison!
PETER: (Awed) How ghastly! Science is the bunk.
MR. ICKY: (Sighing) I got him pretty well subdued now. 'Tisn't every one who has to tire out two sets o' glands in his lifetime. I wouldn't take another set for all the animal spirits in an orphan asylum.
PETER: (Considering) I shouldn't think you'd object to a nice quiet old clergyman's set.
MR. ICKY: Clergymen haven't got glands—they have souls.
(There is a low, sonorous honking off stage to indicate that a large motor-car has stopped in the
