Scampi: “Lucullus, when frugality could charm,/ Had roasted turnips in the Sabine farm”.

Plutarch: What?

Scampi: Oh! Ploo-tark.

Peter: What’s this?

Scampi: I thought we were having a classical moment.

PAUSE.

Scampi: No?

Peter: I am very busy with my important work.

Scampi: Oh. Okay.

PAUSE.

Scampi: I would like some ice cubes.  Do you have any ice cubes?

Peter: Yes.  I have seventy.

Scampi: Very nice.  I will take five.

Peter: Did you just throw five ice cubes onto the floor?

Scampi: No.

Peter: I see.

Scampi: I was juggling.

Peter: Ah.

Scampi: Like you juggle your busy schedule: home, work, family, community.  You are a modern woman.

Peter: SIGHS.

Scampi: It’s all very vulgar of course.

Peter: Pardon?

Scampi: Giving in to the modern life. Better to retire to your country home, your concubines and four-legged friends.

Peter: Perhaps you have mistaken me for someone else.

Scampi: Impossible! You are Pewter, Vice Undersecretary to the Minster of the Interior.

Peter: Ah.

Scampi: You stand to make a fortune at the next Queen’s Plate with Secretariat, your namesake.

Peter: When did Secretariat win the Queen’s Plate?

Scampi: Well, he didn’t.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Anyway, it’s all very exhausting.

Peter: Galloping?

Scampi: Oh, everything.

PAUSE.

Peter: I am not a horse.

Scampi: I never said you were a horse.

Peter: Ahem.

Scampi: Well, I didn’t. Of course, we all have our problems.

Peter: Are you having problems?

Scampi: No!

Peter: I am also not having any.

Scampi: We have so much in common.

Peter: Yes.

Scampi: Why don’t we take a walk through the gardens and look at the flutterbys?

Peter: Pardon me?

Scampi: Danaus plexippus. The Monarch, no?

Peter: Oh?

Scampi: Oh, look, azaleas and shit.

Peter: Yes. Pungent.

Scampi: You know what that is?

Peter: A butterfly.

Scampi: Is it a scarce swallowtail?

Peter: Perhaps.

Scampi: Of course not. Let’s just stroll through the King’s gardens, thinking of nothing.

Peter: Ah yes.  The King.

Scampi: And you.

Peter: And I.

Scampi: You know, Peter, I’ve been thinking.

Peter: Is that not against the drift of this exercise?

Scampi: We can all get some exercise of course. I’m not stopping anyone.

Peter: Naturally.

Scampi: Sometimes the plants are very lonely, the way they’re set up.  And sometimes all bunched together.  See?

Peter: Indeed. Horticulture.

Scampi: I’m not talking about a kitchen garden here. Rows of beans and such.

Peter: I never claimed that you were.

Scampi: Right. Sometimes my mind is a tangle of roses.

PAUSE.

Scampi: What are you going to do about that? I’d like to know.

Peter: I hadn’t planned on anything.

Scampi: I should think not.

PAUSE.

Scampi: A tangle of roses, I’m telling you. Peach trees.

Peter: I see.

Scampi: Well, Peter. I certainly hope that you do.