The service is over, Mrs. John. MRS. JOHN [_Wholly awake now, stares about her._] Why does I wake up? Why didn't you take an ax when I was asleep an' knock me over the head with it?--What did I say? Sh! Only don't tell a livin' soul a word, Mrs. Hassenreuter. [_She jumps up and arranges her hair by the help of many hairpins._ _Manager HASSENREUTER appears in the doorway._ HASSENREUTER [_Starting at the sight of his family._] "Behold, behold, Timotheus, _Here_ are the cranes of Ibicus!" Didn't you tell me there was a shipping agent's office in the neighbourhood, Mrs. John?--[_To WALBURGA._] Ah, yes, my child! While, with the frivolousness of youth you have been thinking of your pleasure and nothing but your pleasure, your papa has been running about for three whole hours again purely on business.--[_To SPITTA._] You wouldn't be in such a hurry to establish a family, young man, if you had the least suspicion how hard it is--a struggle from day to day--to get even the wretched, mouldy necessary bit of daily bread for one's wife and child! I trust it will never be your fate to be suddenly hurled one day, quite penniless, into the underworld of Berlin and be obliged to struggle for a naked livelihood for yourself and those dear to you, breast to breast with others equally desperate, in subterranean holes and passages! But you may all congratulate me! A week from now we will be in Strassburg. [_MRS. HASSENREUTER, WALBURGA and SPITTA all press his hand._] Everything else will be adjusted. MRS. HASSENREUTER You have fought an heroic battle for us during these past years, papa. And you did it without stooping to anything unworthy. HASSENREUTER It was a fight like that of drowning men who struggle for planks in the water. My noble costumes, made to body forth the dreams of poets, in what dens of vice, on what reeking bodies have they not passed their nights--_odi profanum vulgus_--only that a few pennies of rental might clatter in my cashbox! But let us turn to more cheerful thoughts. The freight waggon, alias the cart of Thespis is at the door in order to effect the removal of our Penates to happier fields--[_Suddenly turning to SPITTA._] My excellent Spitta, I demand your word of honour that, in your so-called despair, you two do not commit some irreparable folly. In return I promise to lend my ear to any utterances of yours characterised by a modicum of good sense.--Finally: I've come to you, Mrs. John, firstly because the officers bar all the exits and will permit no one to go out; and secondly because I would like exceedingly to know why a man like myself, at the very moment when his triumphant flag is fluttering in the wind again, should have become the object of a malicious newspaper report! MRS. HASSENREUTER Dear Harro, Mrs. John doesn't understand you. HASSENREUTER