Ha, ha, ha! Military brutalities and ghost stories! That mixture is original, but hardly to our purpose. I assume that the theft, or whatever it was, took place during those eleven or twelve days that I spent on business in Alsace. So look the matter over and have the goodness, later, to report to me. _HASSENREUTER turns to his pupils. QUAQUARO mounts the stairs to the loft and disappears behind the trap-door._ HASSENREUTER All right, my good Spitta: Fire away! _SPITTA recites simply according to the sense and without any tragic bombast._ "Ireful my heart in my bosom burneth, My hand is ready for sword or lance, For unto me the Gorgon turneth My foeman's hateful countenance. Scarce I master the rage that assails me. Shall I salute him with fair speech? Better, perchance, my ire avails me? Only the Fury me affrighteth, Protectress of all within her reach, And God's truce which all foes uniteth." HASSENREUTER [_Who has sat down, supports his head on his hand and listens resignedly. Not until SPITTA has ceased speaking for some moments does he look up, as if coming to himself._] Are you quite through, Spitta? If so, I'm much obliged!--You see, my dear fellow, I've really gotten into a deuce of a situation as far as you are concerned: either I tell you impudently to your face that I consider your method of elocution excellent--and in that case I'd be guilty of a lie of the most contemptible kind: or else I tell you that I consider it abominable and then we'd get into another beastly row. SPITTA [_Turning pale._] Yes, all this stilted, rhetorical stuff is quite foreign to my nature. That's the very reason why I abandoned theology. The preacher's tone is repulsive to me. HASSENREUTER And so you would like to reel off these tragic choruses as a clerk of court mumbles a document or a waiter a bill of fare? SPITTA I don't care for the whole sonorous bombast of the "Bride of Messina." HASSENREUTER I wish you'd repeat that charming opinion. SPITTA There's nothing to be done about it, sir. Our conceptions of dramatic art diverge utterly, in some respects. HASSENREUTER Man alive, at this particular moment your face is a veritable monogram of megalomania and impudence! I beg your pardon, but you're my pupil now and no longer the tutor of my children. Your views and mine! You ridiculous tyro! You and Schiller! Friedrich Schiller! I've told you a hundred times that your puerile little views of art are nothing but an innate striving toward imbecility! SPITTA You would have to prove that to me, after all. HASSENREUTER