MRS. JOHN
What child's funeral was that?
HASSENREUTER
Don't you know? It's the little son of Mrs. Knobbe which was brought up to me in so mysterious a way by two women and died almost under my very eyes, probably of exhaustion. À propos …
MRS. JOHN
The Knobbe woman's child is dead?
HASSENREUTER
À propos, Mrs. John, I was going to say that you ought really to know how the affair of those two half-crazy women who got hold of the child finally ended?
MRS. JOHN
Well now, tell me, ain't it like the very finger of God that they didn't take my little Adelbert an' that he didn't die?