CONSUL. On the second floor—Fischer! Red shades that make the place look like a drug-store window at night! I fear you have got bad company in the house.
LOUISE. What is a Boston club?
CONSUL. Oh, there need be no harm in it at all—in this case I don't know, however.—But how did the post-card—? Oh, it was he who dropped it a while ago. Then I'll put it back in the box.—Fischer? I have heard that name before. In connection with something I cannot recall just now—May I ask a question, Miss Louise: does my brother never speak of—the past?
LOUISE. Not to me.
CONSUL. Miss Louise—one more question LOUISE. Excuse me, but here comes the milk, and I have to receive it. [She leaves the dining-room.
The MILKMAID appears from the right and enters the house from the square.
STARCK. [Comes out again, takes off his white linen cap, and puffs with heat] In and out, like a badger at its hole—it's perfectly horrid down there by the ovens—and the evening doesn't make it any cooler.
CONSUL. All this lightning shows that we are going to have rain—Well, the city isn't pleasant, exactly, but up here you have quiet at least: never any rattling carriages, and still less any street-cars—it's just like the country.
STARCK. Of course, it's quiet, but it's too quiet for business. I know my trade, but I am a poor salesman—have always been, and can't learn—or it may be something else. Perhaps I haven't got the proper manner. For when customers act as if I were a swindler I get embarrassed at first, and then as mad as it is possible for me to become. But nowadays I haven't the strength to get really mad. It has been worn out of me—everything gets worn out.
CONSUL. Why don't you go to work for somebody else?