FALK.
What! Office hours—!
STIVER.
Yes, such were my transgressions.
GULDSTAD [ringing on his glass].
Silence for our solicitor's confessions!
STIVER.
But chiefly after five, when I was free,
I'd rattle off whole reams of poetry—
Ten—fifteen folios ere I went to bed—
FALK.
I see—you gave your Pegasus his head,
And off he tore—
STIVER.
On stamped or unstamped paper—
'Twas all the same to him—he'd prance and caper—
FALK.
The spring of poetry flowed no less flush?
But how, pray, did you teach it first to gush?
STIVER.
By aid of love's divining-rod, my friend!
Miss Jay it was that taught me where to bore,
My fiancee—she became so in the end—
For then she was—
FALK.
Your love and nothing more.
STIVER [continuing].
'Twas a strange time; I could not read a bit;
I tuned my pen instead of pointing it;
And when along the foolscap sheet it raced,
It twangled music to the words I traced;—
At last by letter I declared my flame
To her—to her—