STREPHON.  I made up my mind on that subject long ago.  When I am three years and fifty weeks old, I shall have my fatal accident.  And it will not be an accident.

THE HE-ANCIENT.  We are very tired of this subject.  I must leave you.

THE NEWLY BORN.  What is being tired?

THE SHE-ANCIENT.  The penalty of attending to children.  Farewell.

The two Ancients go away severally, she into the grove, he up to the hills behind the temple.

ALL.  Ouf! [A great sigh of relief].

ECRASIA.  Dreadful people!

STREPHON.  Bores!

MARTELLUS.  Yet one would like to follow them; to enter into their life; to grasp their thought; to comprehend the universe as they must.

ARJILLAX.  Getting old, Martellus?

MARTELLUS.  Well, I have finished with the dolls; and I am no longer jealous of you.  That looks like the end.  Two hours sleep is enough for me.  I am afraid I am beginning to find you all rather silly.

STREPHON.  I know.  My girl went off this morning.  She hadnt slept for weeks.  And she found mathematics more interesting than me.

MARTELLUS.  There is a prehistoric saying that has come down to us from a famous woman teacher.  She said:  ‘Leave women; and study mathematics.’  It is the only remaining fragment of a lost scripture called The Confessions of St Augustin, the English Opium Eater.  That primitive savage must have been a great woman, to say a thing that still lives after three hundred centuries.  I too will leave women and study mathematics, which I have neglected too long.  Farewell, children, my old playmates.  I almost wish I could feel sentimental about parting from you; but the cold truth is that you bore me.  Do not be angry with me:  your turn will come. [He passes away gravely into the grove].

ARJILLAX.  There goes a great spirit.  What a sculptor he was!  And now, nothing!  It is as if he had cut off his hands.

THE NEWLY BORN.  Oh, will you all leave me as he has left you?

ECRASIA.  Never.  We have sworn it.

STREPHON.  What is the use of swearing?  She swore.  He swore.  You have sworn.  They have sworn.

ECRASIA.  You speak like a grammar.

STREPHON.  That is how one ought to speak, isnt it?  We shall all be forsworn.

THE NEWLY BORN.  Do not talk like that.  You are saddening us; and you are chasing the light away.  It is growing dark.

ACIS.  Night is falling.  The light will come back tomorrow.

THE NEWLY BORN.  What is tomorrow?

ACIS.  The day that never comes. [He turns towards the temple].

All begin trooping into the temple.

THE NEWLY BORN [holding Acis back] That is no answer.  What—­

ARJILLAX.  Silence.  Little children should be seen and not heard.

THE NEWLY BORN [putting out her tongue at him]!