RUDOLPH. What inheritance?
STRANGER. Always the same! Merciless! Cowardly! Disingenuous!—Depart in peace, brother!
RUDOLPH. What inheritance is that you are talking of?
STRANGER. Now listen, Rudolph—my brother after all: my own mother's son! You put the stone-cutter in jail because he did some erasing—all right! But how about your own erasures from my book, "Christopher Columbus, or the Discovery of America"?
RUDOLPH. [Taken aback] What's that? Columbus?
STRANGER. Yes, my book that became yours!
RUDOLPH remains silent.
STRANGER. Yes, and I understand now that it was you who put the student's lamp in the closet—I understand everything. But do you know that the dinner-table was not of ebony?
RUDOLPH. It wasn't?
STRANGER. It was nothing but maple.