MISS JAY [offended].
There, Mr. Guldstad, I must break a lance!
I've heard as long as I can recollect,
Most worthy people speak with great respect
Of Pastor Strawman and his life's romance.

GULDSTAD [laughing].
Romance?

MISS JAY.
Romance! I call a match romantic
At which mere worldly wisdom looks askance.

FALK.
You make my curiosity gigantic.

MISS JAY [continuing].
But certain people always grow splenetic--
Why, goodness knows--at everything pathetic,
And scoff it down. We all know how, of late,
An unfledged, upstart undergraduate
Presumed, with brazen insolence, to declare
That "William Russell"(1)was a poor affair!

FALK.
But what has this to do with Strawman, pray?
Is he a poem, or a Christian play?

MISS JAY [with tears of emotion].
No, Falk,--a man, with heart as large as day.