I'll scream! I'll tear open the windows! Mrs. Hassenreuter, they wants to rob a mother o' her child! That's my right that I'm the mother o' my child! Ain't that my right? Ain't that so, Mrs. Hassenreuter? They're surroundin' me! They wants to rob me o' my rights! Ain't it goin' to belong to me what I picked up like refuse, what was lyin' on rags half-dead, an' I had to rub it an' knead it all I could before it began to breathe an' come to life slowly? If it wasn't for me, it would ha' been covered with earth these three weeks! HASSENREUTER Mr. John, to play the part of an arbitrator between married people is not ordinarily my function. It's too thankless a task and one's experiences are, as a rule, too unhappy. But you should not permit your feeling of honour, justly wounded as, no doubt, it is, to hurry you into acts that are rash. For, after all, your wife is not responsible for her brother's act. Let her have the child! Don't increase the misery of it all by such hardness toward your wife as must hurt her most cruelly and unnecessarily. MRS. JOHN Paul, that child's like as if it was cut outa my own flesh! I bought that child with my blood. It ain't enough that all the world's after me an' wants to take it away from me; now you gotta join 'em an' do the same! That's the thanks a person gets! Why, it's like a pack o' hungry wolves aroun' me. You c'n kill me! But you can't touch my baby! JOHN I comes home, Mr. Hassenreuter, only this mornin'. I comes home with all my tools on the train, jolly as c'n be. I broke off all my connections in Hamburg. Even if you don' earn so much, says I to myself, you'd rather be with your family, an' take up your child in your arms a little, or maybe take it on your knee a little! That was about the way I was thinkin'! MRS. JOHN Paul! Here, Paul! [_She goes close up to him._] You c'n tear my heart out if you want to! [_She stares long at him, then runs behind the partition, whence her loud weeping is heard._ _SELMA enters from the hall. She is dressed in mourning garments and carries a little wreath in her hand._ SELMA What is I to do? You called me, Mr. John. JOHN Put on your cloak, Selma. Ax your mother if you c'n go an' take a trip with me to Hangelsberg. You'll earn a bit o' money doin' it. All you gotta do is to take my child on your arm an' come along with me. SELMA No, I ain' goin' to touch that child no more. JOHN Why not? SELMA No; I'm afraid, Mr. John! I'm that scared at the way mama an' the police lieutenant screamed at me. MRS. JOHN [_Appears._] Why did they scream at you? SELMA [_Crying vociferously._] Officer Schierke even slapped my face. MRS. JOHN Well, I'll see about that ... he oughta try that again. SELMA