W. (Hesitatingly.) Well, I don’t know; it’s a matter of opinion.
GEO. (Irritably.) It isn’t a matter of opinion either. German is preferable to death.
W. (Reflectively.) Well, I don’t know—the problem is so sudden—but I think you may be right: some kinds of death. It is more than likely that a slow, lingering—well, now, there in Canada in the early times a couple of centuries ago, the Indians would take a missionary and skin him, and get some hot ashes and boiling water and one thing and another, and by-and-by that missionary—well, yes, I can see that, by-and-by, talking German could be a pleasant change for him.
GEO. Why, of course. Das versteht sich; but you have to always think a thing out, or you’re not satisfied. But let’s not go to bothering about thinking out this present business; we’re here, we’re in for it; you are as moribund to see Annie as I am to see Margaret; you know the terms: we’ve got to speak German. Now stop your mooning and get at your Meisterschaft; we’ve got nothing else in the world.
W. Do you think that’ll see us through?
GEO. Why it’s got to. Suppose we wandered out of it and took a chance at the language on our own responsibility, where the nation would we be! Up a stump, that’s where. Our only safety is in sticking like wax to the text.
W. But what can we talk about?
GEO. Why, anything that Meisterschaft talks about. It ain’t our affair.
W. I know; but Meisterschaft talks about everything.
GEO. And yet don’t talk about anything long enough for it to get embarrassing. Meisterschaft is just splendid for general conversation.