You mean the butcher in Hangelsberg? QUAQUARO Naw, I don' mean the husband o' your sister, but the feller what's brother o' your wife. JOHN It's Bruno you mean? QUAQUARO Sure, that's the feller. JOHN How do I know? I'd sooner be watchin' if the dogs still plays on the curb. I don't want to have no dealin's with Bruno. QUAQUARO Listen to me, Paul. But don't get mad. They knows at the police station that Bruno was seen in company o' the Polish girl what wanted to claim this here child, first right outside o' the door here an' then at a certain place on Shore street where the tanners sometimes looses their soakin' hides. An' now the girl's jus' disappeared. I don' know nothin' o' the particulars, excep' that the police is huntin' for the girl. JOHN [_Resolutely putting aside the long pipe which he had lit._] I don' know, but I can't take no enjoyment in it this mornin'. I don' know what's gotten into me. I was as jolly as can be. An' now all of a sudden I feel so dam' mean I'd like to go straight back to Hamburg an' hear an' see nothin' more!--Why d'you come aroun' with stories like that? QUAQUARO I jus' thought I'd tell you what happened while you an' your wife was away right here in your own house? JOHN In my own house? QUAQUARO That's it! Yessir! They says that Selma pushed the perambulator with her little brother in here where the strange girl an' her friend came an' took him an' carried him off. But upstairs, in the actor's place, they caught her. JOHN What's that? QUAQUARO So up there the strange girl an' the Knobbe woman pretty near tore each other's hair out over the child's body. JOHN What I'd like to know is how all that concerns me? Ain't there trouble here over some girl most o' the time? Let 'em go on! I don' care! That is to say, Emil, if there ain't more to it than you're tellin' me. QUAQUARO That's why I come to you! There is more. The girl said in front o' witnesses more'n onct that that little crittur o' Knobbe's was her own an' that she had expressly given it in board to your wife. JOHN [_First taken aback, then relieved. Laughing._] She ain't quite right in her upper story. That's all. _ERICH SPITTA enters._ SPITTA Good morning, Mr. John. JOHN Good mornin', Mr. Spitta. [_To QUAQUARO, who is still loitering in the door._] It's all right, Emil. I'll take notice o' what you says an' act accordin'. _QUAQUARO exit._ JOHN Now jus' look at a feller like that, Mr. Spitta. He's more'n half a gaol bird an' yet he knows how to make hisself a favourite with the district commissioner at headquarters! An' then he goes aroun' pokin' his nose into honest folks' affairs. SPITTA Has Miss Walburga Hassenreuter been asking after me, Mr. John? JOHN Not up to this time; not that I knows of! [_He opens the door to the hall._] Selma! Excuse me a minute, will you? Selma! I gotta know what that there girl c'n tell me. _SELMA KNOBBE enters._ SELMA [_Still at the door._] What d'you want? JOHN