Comedy plays; German drama -- Translations into English
FRAN.
Groom! and now you are!!!!!
JUST.
All in all; valet and huntsman, footman and groom.
FRAN.
Well, I never! To turn away so many good, excellent servants, and to
keep the very worst of all! I should like to know what your master
finds in you!
JUST.
Perhaps he finds that I am an honest fellow.
FRAN.
Oh! one is precious little if one is nothing more than honest. William
was another sort of a man! So your master has let him go for a trip!
JUST.
Yes, he... let him--because he could not prevent him.
FRAN.
How so?
JUST.
Oh! William will do well on his travels. He took master's wardrobe
with him.
FRAN.
What! he did not run away with it?
JUST.
I cannot say that exactly; but when we left Nurnberg, he did not
follow us with it.
FRAN.
Oh! the rascal!
JUST.
He was the right sort! he could curl hair and shave--and chatter and
flirt--couldn't he?
FRAN.
At any rate, I would not have turned away the huntsman, had I been in
the Major's place. If he did not want him any longer as huntsman, he
was still a useful fellow. Where has he found him a place?
JUST.
With the Commandant of Spandau.
FRAN.
The fortress! There cannot be much hunting within the walls either.
JUST.
Oh! Philip does not hunt there.
FRAN.
What does he do, then?
JUST.
He rides--on the treadmill.
FRAN.
The treadmill!
JUST.
But only for three years. He made a bit of a plot amongst master's
company, to get six men through the outposts.
FRAN.
I am astonished; the knave!
JUST.
Ah! he was a useful fellow; a huntsman who knew all the foot paths and
by-ways for fifty miles round, through forests and bogs. And he could
shoot!
FRAN.
It is lucky the Major has still got the honest coachman.
JUST.
Has he got him still?
FRAN.
I thought you said Martin was off on a ride: of course he will come
back!
JUST.
Do you think so?
FRAN.
Well, where has he ridden to?
JUST.
It is now going on for ten weeks since he rode master's last and only
horse--to water.
FRAN.
And has not he come back yet? Oh! the rascal!
JUST.
The water may have washed the honest coachman away. Oh! he was a
famous coachman! He had driven ten years in Vienna. My master will
never get such another again. When the horses were in full gallop, he
only had to say "Wo!" and there they stood, like a wall. Moreover, he
was a finished horse-doctor!
FRAN.
I begin now to be anxious about the footman's promotion.
JUST.
No, no; there is no occasion for that. He has become a drummer in a
garrison regiment.
FRAN.
I thought as much!
JUST.
Fritz chummed up with a scamp, never came home at night, made debts
everywhere in master's name, and a thousand rascally tricks. In short,
the Major saw that he was determined to rise in the world
(pantomimically imitating the act of hanging),
so he put him in the right road.
FRAN.
Oh! the stupid!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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