MRS. JOHN
[Wholly awake now, stares about her.] Why does I wake up? Why didn't you take an ax when I was asleep an' knock me over the head with it?—What did I say? Sh! Only don't tell a livin' soul a word, Mrs. Hassenreuter.
[She jumps up and arranges her hair by the help of many hairpins.
Manager HASSENREUTER appears in the doorway.
HASSENREUTER
[Starting at the sight of his family.]
"Behold, behold, Timotheus, Here are the cranes of Ibicus!"
Didn't you tell me there was a shipping agent's office in the neighbourhood, Mrs. John?—[To WALBURGA.] Ah, yes, my child! While, with the frivolousness of youth you have been thinking of your pleasure and nothing but your pleasure, your papa has been running about for three whole hours again purely on business.—[To SPITTA.] You wouldn't be in such a hurry to establish a family, young man, if you had the least suspicion how hard it is—a struggle from day to day—to get even the wretched, mouldy necessary bit of daily bread for one's wife and child! I trust it will never be your fate to be suddenly hurled one day, quite penniless, into the underworld of Berlin and be obliged to struggle for a naked livelihood for yourself and those dear to you, breast to breast with others equally desperate, in subterranean holes and passages! But you may all congratulate me! A week from now we will be in Strassburg. [MRS. HASSENREUTER, WALBURGA and SPITTA all press his hand.] Everything else will be adjusted.
MRS. HASSENREUTER
You have fought an heroic battle for us during these past years, papa.
And you did it without stooping to anything unworthy.