"Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill" "But mice and rats and such small deer Have been Tom's food for seven long year." In all seriousness I have passed through dark and difficult times! In spite of the fact that I preferred not to write you of it, I have no doubt that you are informed. ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH But it wasn't extra friendly, you know, for you not to answer one little word to the long, nice letter I wrote you. HASSENREUTER Ha, ha, ha! What's the use of answering a little girl's letter if one has both hands full taking care of oneself and can't possibly be of the slightest use to her? Pshaw! _E nihilo nihil fit!_ In the vernacular: You can't get results out of nothing! Moth and dust! Dust and moths! And that's all my efforts for German culture in the west profited me! ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH So you didn't turn over your collection of properties to manager Kunz. HASSENREUTER "O Strassburg, O Strassburg, Thou beautiful old town!" No, little one, I didn't leave my properties in Strassburg! This ex-waiter, ex-innkeeper and lessee of disreputable dance halls, this idiot, this imbecile who succeeded me, didn't happen to want my stuff. No, I didn't leave my collection of properties there, but what I did have to leave there was forty thousand crowns of hard-earned money left me from my old touring days as an actor, and, in addition, fifty thousand crowns which formed the dowry of my excellent wife. However, it was a piece of good luck, after all, that I kept the properties. Ha, ha, ha! These fellows here ... [_he touches one of the mailed figures_] ... surely you remember them? ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH Could I forget my pasteboard knights? HASSENREUTER Very well, then: it was these pasteboard knights and all the other trash that surrounds them, that actually, after his hegira, kept the old rag-picker and costumer, Harro Eberhard Hassenreuter, above water. But let's speak of cheerful things: I saw with pleasure in the paper that his Excellency has engaged you for Berlin. ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH I don't care a great deal about it! I'd rather play for you, and you must promise me, whenever you undertake the management of a theatre again--you will promise, won't you?--that you'll let me break my contract right away? [_The MANAGER laughs heartily._] I had to be annoyed quite enough for three long years by the barn-stormers of the provinces. Berlin I don't like, and a court theatre least of all. Lord, what people and what a profession it is! You know I belong to your collection--I've always belonged to it! [_She stands up primly among the pasteboard knights._ HASSENREUTER Ha, ha, ha, ha! Well then, come to my arms, faithful knight! [_He opens his arms wide, she flies into them, and they now salute each other with long, continuous kisses._ ALICE RUeTTERBUSCH Go on, Harro. Now tell me. How is your wife? HASSENREUTER