INNKEEPER.
No, not exactly; but it vexes me more than I can tell you that there is no more demand for my calling.
ANNE.
Surely in time all that will change for the better.
INNKEEPER.
No, dear daughter. The times do not tend that way. Oh, why was I not a Hofrath! You may look at any play-bill this day, it always says at the bottom: “The scene is at the house of the Hofrath.” If things go on like this I’ll study for a gaoler, for prisons, you know, still occur in patriotic and mediæval pieces. But my son must see to it that he gets to be a Hofrath.
ANNE.
Be comforted, dear father, and do not yield to your melancholy.
INNKEEPER.
I’ve half a mind to turn poet myself, and invent a new art of poetry which shall supersede the Hofrath pieces, and in which the scene shall invariably play in a tavern.