ANOTHER CITIZEN (off stage). I have a complaint to lodge before the burgomaster against the alderman of the hatters' guild.
HERMAN. Who is that, Henrich?
HENRICH. It is this man's adversary.
Herman. Make him hand you his memorial. Both you good men wait in the anteroom meanwhile.
[Exit the Citizen.
SCENE 6
HERMAN. Henrich!
HENRICH. Yes, sir!
HERMAN. Can't you help me put this to rights? I don't know what to do first. Read aloud that hatter's statement.
HENRICH (falteringly reads). "Noble, learned, stern, and steadfast Burgomaster. As the first-fruits of the worthy company of lawful citizens of this glorious city, I the undersigned, N. N., present myself, unworthy Alderman of the worthy Hatters' Guild; and after having extended congratulations both respectful and hearty on a man so worthy and highly raised on high to so height, in deepest humility submit for your consideration one of the greatest, most dangerous, and abominable abuses which wicked times and still more wicked men have brought into practice in this city, in hope that your Magnificence will afford a remedy. This, then, is the case: The hucksters here in the city, utterly without fear or shame, openly sell and offer for sale whole pieces of a sort of cloth which they cause to be woven of beaver—indeed they even descend to the dismal audacity of having stockings made of it—though it is well known that beaver-hair belongs exclusively to our profession, whereby we poor hatters are unable at any price to obtain the hair necessary for the pursuit of our means of subsistence, especially as good people have got into such a way that few will pay, as they used to do, from ten to twenty rix-dollars for a hat, to the irreparable damage of the reputation and profit of our trade. If it might now please his Magnificence the Burgomaster to consider the appended twenty-four weighty causes and reasons which have led us hat-makers presumably to presume that we alone are entitled to work in beaver, to wit: