ERICSON. Oh, his manners are pretty decent. And more than that I don't know, for what he keeps hidden I can't find out, of course.
STRANGER. Excellent! But—his hands are always blue, and yet you know that they are white beneath the dye.
ERICSON. But to make them so they should be scraped, and that's something he won't permit.
STRANGER. Good!—Who are the young couple coming over there?
ERICSON. That's the gardener's son and my daughter, who were to have been married to-night, but who have had to postpone it on account of the fire—Now I shall leave, for I don't want to embarrass them. You understand—I ain't much as a father-in-law. Good-bye! [He goes out.
The STRANGER withdraws behind the inn, but so that he remains visible to the spectators.
ALFRED and MATHILDA enter hand in hand.
ALFRED. I had to have a look at this place—I had to——
MATHILDA. Why did you have to look at it?
ALFRED. Because I have suffered so much in this house that more than once I wished it on fire.
MATHILDA. Yes, I know, it kept the sun out of the garden, and now everything will grow much better—provided they don't put up a still higher house——