FIELITZ Hold on! Not me! He ain't no concern o' mine. But every time you open your mouth I gets ready to bet ten pairs o' boots that you're goin' to talk about Schmarowski. MRS. FIELITZ Did he do you any harm, eh? Well? FIELITZ No, I can't say as he has. Not that I know. An' I wouldn't advise him to try neither. Only when I sees him I gets kind o' sick at my stomick. You oughta have married him yourself. MRS. FIELITZ If I had been thirty years younger--sure enough. FIELITZ Well, why don't you go an' move over to your daughter then! Go right on! Hurry all you can an' go to Adelaide's. Then they got hold of you good and tight an' you c'n get rid o' your savin's. MRS. FIELITZ That's an ambitious man. He don't have to wait, for me; that's sure!--there ain't no gettin' ahead with your kind. Instead o' you fellows helpin' each other, you're always hittin' out at each other. Now Schmarowski--he's a wide-awake kind o' man. No money ain't been wasted on him. You needn't be scared: he'll make his way all right.--But if you knew just a speck o' somethin' about life, you'd know what you'd be doin' too. FIELITZ Me? How's that? Why me exactly? MRS. FIELITZ What was it that there bricklayer boss told me? I saw him one day when he was full; they was just raisin' that church. He says: Schmarowski, says he, that's a sly dog. An' he knew why he was sayin' that. Them plans o' his takes 'em all in. FIELITZ I ain't got no objection to his takin' 'em in. MRS. FIELITZ He ain't the kind o' man to sit an' draw till he's blind an' let the bricklayers get all the profit. FIELITZ Well, I ain't made the world. MRS. FIELITZ No, nor you ain't goin' to stop it neither. FIELITZ An' I don't want to. MRS. FIELITZ You ain't goin' to stop it, Fielitz--not the world an' not me. That's settled.-- [_She has said this in a slightly ironical way, yet with a half embarrassed laugh. She now puts away her little book excitedly._ FIELITZ I can't get to understand reel straight. I'm always thinkin' there's somethin' wrong with you. MRS. FIELITZ Maybe there was somethin' wrong with Grabow too, eh? I s'ppose that's the reason he's livin' in his new house this day.--I wish there'd be somethin' like that wrong with you onct in a while. But if somebody don't pull an' poke at you, you'd grow fast to the stool you're sittin' on. FIELITZ [_With decision._] Mother, put that there thing outta your mind. I tell you that in kindness now. I ain't goin' to lend my help to no such thing. Because why? I knows what that means. Is I goin' to jump into that kind of a mess again? No, I ain't young enough for that no more. MRS. FIELITZ Just because you're an old feller you oughta be thinkin' about it all the more. How long are you goin' to be able to work along here. You don't get around to much no more now. You cobbled around on Wehrhahn's shoes! It took more'n two weeks. FIELITZ Well, mother, you needn't lie that way. MRS. FIELITZ