Two brandies, if you please. WELZEL Good-morning to you, gentlemen. [_He pours out their beverage; the two touch glasses, take a mouthful, and then set the glasses down on the counter._ TRAVELLER [_To FORESTER._] Come far this morning, sir? FORESTER From Steinseiffersdorf--that's a good step. _Two old WEAVERS enter, and seat themselves beside ANSORGE, BAUMERT, and HORNIG._ TRAVELLER Excuse me asking, but are you in Count Hochheim's service? FORESTER No. I'm in Count Keil's. TRAVELLER Yes, yes, of course--that was what I meant. One gets confused here among all the counts and barons and other gentlemen. It would take a giant's memory to remember them all. Why do you carry an axe, if I may ask? FORESTER I've just taken this one from a man who was stealing wood. OLD BAUMERT Yes, their lordships are mighty strict with us about a few sticks for the fire. TRAVELLER You must allow that if every one were to help himself to what he wanted ... OLD BAUMERT By your leave, sir, but there's a difference made here as elsewhere between the big an' the little thieves. There's some here as deals in stolen wood wholesale, and grows rich on it. But if a poor weaver ... FIRST OLD WEAVER [_Interrupts BAUMERT._] We're forbid to take a single branch; but their lordships, they take the very skin off of us--we've assurance money to pay, an' spinning-money, an' charges in kind--we must go here an' go there, an' do so an' so much field work, all willy-nilly. ANSORGE That's just how it is--what the manufacturer leaves us, their lordships takes from us. SECOND OLD WEAVER [_Has taken a seat at the next table._] I've said it to his lordship hisself. By your leave, my lord, says I, it's not possible for me to work on the estate so many days this year. I comes right out with it. For why--my own bit of ground, my lord, it's been next to carried away by the rains. I've to work night and day if I'm to live at all. For oh, what a flood that was...! There I stood an' wrung my hands, an' watched the good soil come pourin' down the hill, into the very house! And all that dear, fine seed!... I could do nothin' but roar an' cry until I couldn't see out o' my eyes for a week. And then I had to start an' wheel eighty heavy barrow-loads of earth up that hill, till my back was all but broken. PEASANT [_Roughly._] You weavers here make such an awful outcry. As if we hadn't all to put up with what Heaven sends us. An' if you _are_ badly off just now, whose fault is it but your own? What did you do when trade was good? Drank an' squandered all you made. If you had saved a bit then, you'd have it to fall back on now when times is bad, and not need to be goin' stealin' yarn and wood. FIRST YOUNG WEAVER [_Standing with several comrades in the lobby or outer room, calls in at the door._] What's a peasant but a peasant, though he lies in bed till nine? FIRST OLD WEAVER