[_Fool comes in._ FOOL Give me a penny. SECOND PUPIL Let us choose a subject by chance. Here is his big book. Let us turn over the pages slowly. Let one of us put down his finger without looking. The passage his finger lights on will be the subject for the lesson. FOOL Give me a penny. THIRD PUPIL (_Taking up book_) How heavy it is. FOURTH PUPIL Spread it on Teigue's back, and then we can all stand round and see the choice. SECOND PUPIL Make him spread out his arms. FOURTH PUPIL Down on your knees. Hunch up your back. Spread your arms out now, and look like a golden eagle in a church. Keep still, keep still. FOOL Give me a penny. THIRD PUPIL Is that the right cry for an eagle cock? SECOND PUPIL I'll turn the pages--you close your eyes and put your finger down. THIRD PUPIL That's it, and then he cannot blame us for the choice. FIRST PUPIL There, I have chosen. Fool, keep still--and if what's wise is strange and sounds like nonsense, we've made a good choice. FIFTH PUPIL The Master has come. FOOL Will anybody give a penny to a fool? [_One of the pupils draws back the stage curtain showing the Master sitting at his desk. There is an hour-glass upon his desk or in a bracket on the wall. One pupil puts the book before him._ FIRST PUPIL We have chosen the passage for the lesson, Master. 'There are two living countries, one visible and one invisible, and when it is summer there, it is winter here, and when it is November with us, it is lambing-time there.' WISE MAN That passage, that passage! what mischief has there been since yesterday? FIRST PUPIL None, Master. WISE MAN Oh yes, there has; some craziness has fallen from the wind, or risen from the graves of old men, and made you choose that subject. FOURTH PUPIL I knew that it was folly, but they would have it. THIRD PUPIL Had we not better say we picked it by chance? SECOND PUPIL No; he would say we were children still. FIRST PUPIL I have found a sentence under that one that says--as though to show it had a hidden meaning--a beggar wrote it upon the walls of Babylon. WISE MAN Then find some beggar and ask him what it means, for I will have nothing to do with it. FOURTH PUPIL Come, Teigue, what is the old book's meaning when it says that there are sheep that drop their lambs in November? FOOL To be sure--everybody knows, everybody in the world knows, when it is Spring with us, the trees are withering there, when it is Summer with us, the snow is falling there, and have I not myself heard the lambs that are there all bleating on a cold November day--to be sure, does not everybody with an intellect know that; and maybe when it's night with us, it is day with them, for many a time I have seen the roads lighted before me. WISE MAN