HENRICH. Mr. Burgomaster!
HERMAN. Don't you think people will envy me because of this preferment?
HENRICH. Well, what do you care about people who envy you, your Honor? If only I had been made a burgomaster like that, I should have sent my enviers to death and the devil.
HERMAN. The one thing I am a little anxious about is the matter of small ceremonies, for the world is governed by pedantry, and people notice trifles more than solid things. If only the first day were over, when I make my entry into the City Hall, I should be glad; for as far as substantial business is concerned, that is bread and butter to me. But I must arrange how I am to meet my colleagues for the first time and make sure that I do not run counter to any of the traditional ceremonies.
HENRICH. Oh, fiddlesticks, Mr. Burgomaster! No true man lets himself be bound by fixed ceremonies. I, for my part, should do nothing, if I were to make my entry, except give the gentlemen of the council my hand to kiss, and wear a fine scowl on my brow so that they might gather what my intentions were, and silently make them realize that a burgomaster was no goose and no dumpling.
HERMAN. But think, there must be an oration at the City Hall the first day that I am introduced. I can certainly make as good a speech as any one in town, and I should make bold to preach if it were to-morrow morning. But inasmuch as I have never been present at such a ceremony before, I really don't know what is the customary formula.
HENRICH. Oh, sir, no one but schoolmasters limit themselves by a formula. If I were burgomaster, I should be content with a brief and emphatic address, such as this: "It may seem a rather remarkable thing, wise and noble councillors, to see a miserable tinker suddenly turned into a burgomaster—"
HERMAN. Fie, that would be a shabby start.
HENRICH. No, that wouldn't be the start. I should begin my speech like this: "I thank you, wise and noble gentlemen, for the honor you have done a wretched tinker like me in making him burgomaster—"
HERMAN. You always bring in your confounded "tinker." It is not proper to talk like that at the City Hall, where I must act as if I had been born a burgomaster. If I were to make such a speech, I should only be scorned and mocked. No, no, Henrich, you would make a poor orator. He is a rogue who says I was ever a tinker. I have merely tinkered a little to pass the time away when I have been tired of studying.