[_Throwing her arms about JOHN'S neck._] Paul, you're goin' to leave me! For God's sake, tell me right out that it's so! Don' fool me aroun' an' cheat me! Tell me right out! JOHN What's the matter with you to-day, Henrietta? MRS. JOHN [_Pulling herself together._] Don' attend to my fool talk. I ain't had no rest all night--that's it. An' then I got up reel early, an' anyhow, it ain't nothin' but that I'm a bit weak yet. JOHN Then you better lie down flat on your back an' rest a little. [_MRS. JOHN throws herself on the sofa and stares at the ceiling._] Maybe you'd better comb yourself a bit afterwards, Jette!--It musta been mighty dusty on the train for you to be jus' covered all over with sand the way you are! [_MRS. JOHN does not answer but continues staring at the ceiling._] I must go an' bring that there little feller into the light a bit. [_He goes behind the partition._ MRS. JOHN How long has we been married, Paul? JOHN [_Plays with the rattle behind the partition. Then answers_:] That was in eighteen hundred and seventy-two, jus' as I came back from the war. MRS. JOHN Then you came to father, didn't you? An' you assoomed a grand position an' you had the Iron Cross on the left side o' your chest. JOHN [_Appears, swinging the rattle and carrying the child on its pillow. He speaks merrily._] That's so, mother. An' I got it yet. If you want to see it, I'll pin it on. MRS. JOHN [_Still stretched out on the sofa._] An' then you came to me an' you said that I wasn't to be so busy all the time ... goin' up an' down, runnin' upstairs an' downstairs ... that I was to be a bit more easy-goin'. JOHN An' I'm still sayin' that same thing to-day. MRS. JOHN An' then you tickled me with your moustache an' kissed me right behind my left ear! An' then ... JOHN Then it didn't take long for us to agree, eh? MRS. JOHN Yes, an' I laughed an', bit by bit, I looked at myself in every one o' your brass buttons. I was lookin' different then! An' then you said ... JOHN Well, mother, you're a great one for rememberin' things, I must say! MRS. JOHN An' then you said: When we has a boy, an' that'll be soon, he c'n follow the flag into the field too "with God for King an' country." JOHN [_Sings to the child, playing with the rattle._] "To heaven he turns his glances bold Whence gaze the hero sires of old: The Rhine, the Rhine, the German Rhine!"... Well, an' now that I has a little feller like that I ain't half so keen on sendin' him to the war to be food for powder. [_He retires with the child behind the partition._ MRS. JOHN [_Still staring at the ceiling._] Paul, Paul! Seems as if all that was a hundred years ago! JOHN [_Reappears from behind the partition without the child._] Not as long ago as all that. MRS. JOHN Look here, what d'you think? How would it be if you was to take me an' the child an' go to America? JOHN