PILLORY. I should—but I always have justice on my side. [Swings switch.]
STATUE. What, then, was his specialty?
PILLORY. He was a reformer in street paving.
STATUE. In street paving? Pestilence and cowardice! He dabbles, then, in my profession. [Bumps into female statue.]
PILLORY. No; he does intelligently what you dabbled in, and you wouldn't be standing where you are had you not been the burgomaster's father-in-law!
STATUE. Was not I the one who carried out the new idea of stone-paved streets?
PILLORY. Yes, that you did; but the idea was not new. And what did you do? In place of the soft sand in which one formerly placed one's feet, one must now balance oneself on jagged and rolly stones, which destroy both feet and shoes—save on the street which leads from your house to the tavern, where you let lay a footbridge of flat stones.
STATUE. And now this reformer—or charlatan—wants to undo what I did?
PILLORY. He wants to tear up what you laid down and pave all the streets with "burgomaster" stones, so that all may be equally comfortable.
STATUE. So he's a rabid radical!