DOROTHY [nervously]: Well, you see it’s like this—I do all my buying in Boston and—

YOUNG MAN: What do you buy in Boston?

DOROTHY: You can see for yourself. Look over the stock.

YOUNG MAN [examining the shelves]: Thimbles—threads—ladies’ needlework—white gloves—

DOROTHY: Notions. Odds and ends.

YOUNG MAN: Odds and ends—of existence?

DOROTHY: Yes, that’s it exactly.

YOUNG MAN: What do you do after hours?

DOROTHY: I carry on a lot of correspondence.

YOUNG MAN: Who with?

DOROTHY: With wholesale firms in Boston.

YOUNG MAN: How do you sign your letters?

DOROTHY: “Sincerely.” “As ever.” “Very truly yours.”

YOUNG MAN: But never with love?

DOROTHY: Love? To firms in Boston?

YOUNG MAN: I guess not. I think you ought to enlarge your correspondence. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll meet you tonight on Highway No. 77!

DOROTHY: Oh, no! I have my correspondence!

YOUNG MAN: Delay your correspondence. Meet me there. We’ll have a couple of beers at the Starlight Casino.

DOROTHY [with frantic evasion]: But I don’t drink!

YOUNG MAN: Then eat. Swiss cheese on rye. It doesn’t matter. Afterwards I’ll take you for a ride in an open car.

DOROTHY: Where to?

YOUNG MAN: To Cypress Hill.

DOROTHY: Why, that’s the cemetery.

YOUNG MAN: Yes, I know.

DOROTHY: Why there?

YOUNG MAN: Because dead people give the best advice.

DOROTHY: Advice on what?

YOUNG MAN: The problems of the living.

DOROTHY: What advice do they give?

YOUNG MAN: Just one word: Live!

DOROTHY: Live?

YOUNG MAN: Yes, live, live, live! It’s all they know, it’s the only word left in their vocabulary!

DOROTHY: I don’t see how—?

YOUNG MAN: I’ll tell you how. There’s one thing in Death’s favor. It’s a wonderful process of simplification. It rids the heart of all inconsequentials. For instance, it goes through the dictionary with an absolutely merciless blue pencil. Finally all that you’ve got left’s one page—and on that page one word!

DOROTHY: The word you hear at night on Cypress Hill?

YOUNG MAN: The word you hear at night on Cypress Hill!

DOROTHY: Ohhh. Oh, oh!

YOUNG MAN: But no one hears it till they deal with me. I have a secret patented device that makes it audible to them. Something never processed by Du Pont. But nonetheless a marvelous invention. It’s absolutely weightless and transparent. It fits inside the ear. Your friends won’t even know you have it on. But this I guarantee: you’ll hear that word, that sound much like the long, sweet sound of leaves in motion!

DOROTHY: Leaves?

YOUNG MAN: Yes, willow leaves or leaves of cypresses or leaves of wind-blown grass! And afterwards you’ll never be the same. No, you’ll be changed forever!

DOROTHY: In what way?

YOUNG MAN: You’ll live, live, live!—And not behind petunias. How about it, Miss Simple? Dorothy? Is it a date? Tonight at half-past eight on No. 77?

DOROTHY: Whereabouts on Highway No. 77?

YOUNG MAN: By the wild plum tree—at the broken place in the long stone wall—where roots have cleft the rocks and made them crumble.