[from] Roiling the Nite 'Way (a musical for several persons)

[band vamping jauntily]

Collision: If I remember correct, when we met, you sported supported a pencil mustache, and you went by the name Ross Cellabee.
Rose: You don't. Viz., remember correct. Sic.

[band kicks in jazzily]

C: I was trawling, late of the merchant marine--
R: I was drawling, mate to a purging regime.
R & C (firmly): Let's stall the whole thing, boss!

[band backs off]

C: Aw, come off of it. You were building orreries that spring...to life under the full moon...that summer...in the Hamptons.
R: Me? Or the orreries?
C: Don't be ornery. You learned me the difference b'tween flowery talk and the distant instance(s) built into longing for the brambles.
R: Are you drunk?
C: Naturally.
R: Setting you straight would go something like this.

[band strikes up again, insistent]

R: I had just begun to learn
that my own attempts to earn
a living--in civill service...
would hardly last a year
now let me bend your ear
with its inherent contradictions
C: You were not civil nor did you service--
R: The talk was drivel and the acts were worthless!
C: Hating peons writing poems
is no way to be of use
R: I was pressed into the position
depressed if you want the truth...

[the dance over, they face one another, 2 arms lengths between 'em]

R: I was not civil
C: Their talk was drivel!
R: I did no service
C: Those acts are worthless
R & C: Let's stall the whole thing, boss!

[nice fanfare, curtain, band wheezes]

R (offstage): Wanna see a neat design for an ornithopter?