Strawman.
Even tho' you crush another's happiness?
Falk.
I plant the flower of knowledge in its place.
[Smiling.
If, by the way, you have not ceased to think
Of the Gazette—
Strawman.
Ah, that was all a joke?
Falk.
Yes, pluck up courage, that will turn to smoke;
I break the ice in action, not in ink.
Strawman.
But even though you spare me, sure enough
There's one who won't so lightly let me off;
He has the advantage, and he won't forego it,
That lawyer's clerk—and 'tis to you I owe it;
You raked the ashes of our faded flames,
And you may take your oath he won't be still
If once I mutter but a syllable
Against the brazen bluster of his claims.
These civil-service gentlemen, they say,
Are very potent in the press to-day.
A trumpery paragraph can lay me low,
Once printed in that Samson-like Gazette
That with the jaw of asses fells its foe,
And runs away with tackle and with net,
Especially towards the quarter day—
