HERMAN. Ah, my good Gert, you are much too self-satisfied. You still have something to learn.
GERT. But not from Franz the cutler.
(They get into a violent quarrel and talk all at once. They rise from their chairs, threaten, and shout.)
HERMAN [knocking on the table and bellowing]. Silence! Silence! Gentlemen! Let us say no more about it, and each one hold to his own opinion. Listen, gentlemen! Keep still, will you? Do you think that it was from fear that the Duke of Vendome retired and set fire to the countryside? No, the fellow has been reading the Chronicle of Alexander the Great, for that's what he did when Darius followed him, and thereby he won as great a victory as we won before Hochstadt.
JENS. It has just struck twelve by the postmaster's clock.
HERMAN. Then we must go.
[They go out disputing, and make a great noise as they continue the argument.]
ACT III
SCENE 1
(In front of Herman's house stand Abrahams and Sanderus, with
Christopher and Jochum, their servants.)