LINDGREN. Yes, you are very unfortunate!
AXEL. I am! And I can tell you that after my experience during the last half-hour, I wouldn't mind changing place with you. What a peaceful, unassailable position he holds who has nothing to lose! What a lot of interest and sympathy those that are obscure and misunderstood and over-looked always arouse! You have only to hold out your hand and you get a coin. You have only to open your arms, and there are friends ready to fall into them. And then what a powerful party behind you—formed of the millions who are just like you! You enviable man who don't realise your own good fortune!
LINDGREN. So you think me that far down, and yourself as high up as all that?—Tell me, you don't happen to have read to-day's paper? [He takes a newspaper from his pocket.
AXEL. No, and I don't care to read it either.
LINDGREN. But you ought to do it for your own sake.
AXEL. No, I am not going to do it—not even for your sake. It is as if you said: "Come here and let me spit at you." And then you are silly enough to demand that I shall come, too.—Do you know, during these last minutes I have become more and more convinced that if I had ever come across you in the jungle, I should beyond all doubt have picked you off with my breech-loader?
LINDGREN. I believe it—beast of prey that you are!
AXEL. It isn't safe to settle accounts with one's friends, or with persons with whom one has been intimate, for it is hard to tell in advance who has most on the debit side. But as you are bringing in a bill, I am forced to look it over.—You don't think it took me long to discover that back of all your generosity lay an unconscious desire to turn me into the strong arm which you lacked—to make me do for you what you couldn't do for yourself? I had imagination and initiative—you had nothing but money and—"pull." So I am to be congratulated that you didn't eat me, and I may be excused for eating you—my only choice being to eat or be eaten!
LINDGREN. You beast of prey!
AXEL. You rodent, who couldn't become a beast of prey—although that was just what you wished! And what you want at this moment is not so much to rise up to me as to pull me down to where you are.—If you have anything of importance to add, you had better hurry up, for I am expecting a visit.