BEERMANN. What's so startling in that?
FRAU LUND. You told me that you never even read the newspapers.
BOLLAND. We all are cordially grateful to Beermann that in an hour of need he made this sacrifice.
FRAU LUND. The way you talk about the "hour of need" and "sacrifice" Herr Kommerzienrat, it seems to me that you would have been the better candidate.
BOLLAND. Oh, I am too pronouncedly Liberal.
HAUSER. And that's an incurable disease!
BOLLAND. At any rate it makes my nomination impossible. A man was needed who was not known as a party-man.
FRAU LUND. It would seem then that our friend Beermann has become a politician because he ... is no politician?
HAUSER. That's what is known as "fusion."
BEERMANN. Allow me to ask a question. Why should I not become a Reichstag deputy?