But it wasn't extra friendly, you know, for you not to answer one little word to the long, nice letter I wrote you.
HASSENREUTER
Ha, ha, ha! What's the use of answering a little girl's letter if one has both hands full taking care of oneself and can't possibly be of the slightest use to her? Pshaw! E nihilo nihil fit! In the vernacular: You can't get results out of nothing! Moth and dust! Dust and moths! And that's all my efforts for German culture in the west profited me!
ALICE RÜTTERBUSCH
So you didn't turn over your collection of properties to manager Kunz.
HASSENREUTER
"O Strassburg, O Strassburg,
Thou beautiful old town!"
No, little one, I didn't leave my properties in Strassburg! This ex-waiter, ex-innkeeper and lessee of disreputable dance halls, this idiot, this imbecile who succeeded me, didn't happen to want my stuff. No, I didn't leave my collection of properties there, but what I did have to leave there was forty thousand crowns of hard-earned money left me from my old touring days as an actor, and, in addition, fifty thousand crowns which formed the dowry of my excellent wife. However, it was a piece of good luck, after all, that I kept the properties. Ha, ha, ha! These fellows here … [he touches one of the mailed figures] … surely you remember them?
ALICE RÜTTERBUSCH
Could I forget my pasteboard knights?