_Mopsa._ Then, thanks so much for a quite _too_ delightful visit, SPRETA. So _sorry_ to have to run away like this! (_To_ ALFRED, _with subdued anguish_.) I am running away--from _you_! I _entreat_ you not to follow me--not _just_ yet, at any rate! _Alfred_ (_shrinking back_). Ah! (_To himself._) If it depends upon our two trolls whether----. (MOPSA _goes off with_ Sanitary Engineer BLOCHDRÄHN.) There's the steamer, SPRETA.... By Jove, they'll have a run for it! Look, she's putting in. _Spreta._ I daren't. The steamer has one red and one green eye--just like MOPSËMAN'S at mealtimes! _Alfred_ (_common-sensibly_). Only her lights, you know. She doesn't mean anything _personal_ by it. _Spreta._ But they're actually mooring her by the very pier that----How can they have the _heart!_ _Alfred._ Steamboat companies have no feelings. Though why _you_ should feel it so, when you positively loathed the dog. _Spreta._ After all, you weren't so particularly fond of him yourself; now _were_ you, ALFRED? _Alfred._ H'm, he was a decent dog enough--for a mongrel. I didn't _mind_ him; now you _did_. _Spreta_ (_nods slowly_). There is a change in me now. I am easier to please. I could share you with the mangiest mongrel, if I were only quite sure you would never again want to follow that minx MOPSA, ALFRED! _Alfred._ I never said I _did_ want to; though I can't answer for the troll. But I must go away _somewhere_--I'm such a depressing companion for you. I shall go away up into the solitudes--which reminds me of an anecdote I never told either you or MOPSA before. Sit down and I will tell it you. _Spreta_ (_timidly_). Not the one about the night of terror you had on the mountains, ALFRED, when you lost your way and couldn't find a policeman anywhere about the peaks? Because I've heard _that_--and I don't think I _can_ stand it again. _Alfred_ (_coldly and bitterly_). You see that I have really nothing to fill up my life with, when my own wife refuses to listen to my anecdotes! Now MOPSA always---- What is all that barking down there in the town? _Spreta_ (_with an outburst_). Oh, you'll see, they've found Little MOPSËMAN! _Alfred._ Not they. He'll _never_ be found. Those handbills of yours were a mere waste of money. It is only the curs fighting in the street--as usual. _Spreta_ (_slowly, and with resolution_). Only that, ALFRED. And do you know what I mean to do, as soon as you are away solitudinising up there in the mountain hotels? I will go down and bring all those poor neglected dogs home with me. _Alfred_ (_uneasily_). What--the whole _lot_ of them, SPRETA? (_Shocked._) In our Little MOPSËMAN'S place! _Spreta_ (_firmly and decidedly_). Every one. To fill Little MOPSËMAN'S place. They shall dig up his bones, lie on his mat, take it in turns to sleep in his basket. I will try to--h'm--lighten and ennoble their lot in life.