[_With ominous calmness._] Lemme think it over, Jette. [_He goes to the chest of drawers, opens a drawer and flings the baby linen and baby dresses that he finds therein into the middle of the room._] C'n anybody understan' how week after week, an' month after month, all day long an' half the nights she could ha' worked on this trash till her fingers was bloody? MRS. JOHN [_Gathers up the linen and the dresses in insane haste and hides them carefully in the table drawer and elsewhere._] Paul, don' do that! You c'n do anythin' else! It's like tearin' the last rag offa my naked body! JOHN [_Stops, grasps his forehead and sinks into a chair._] If that's true, mother, I'll be too ashamed to show my face again. [_He seems to sink into himself, crosses his arms over his head and hides his face._ HASSENREUTER Mrs. John, how could you permit yourself to be forced into a course of so much error and deception? You've entangled yourself in the most frightful way! Come, children! Unhappily there is nothing more for us to do here. JOHN [_Gets up._] You might as well take me along with you, sir. MRS. JOHN Go on! Go on! I don' need you! JOHN [_Turning to her, coldly._] So you bargained for that there kid someway an' when its mother wanted it back you got Bruno to kill her? MRS. JOHN You ain't no husband o' mine! How could that be! You been bought by the police! You took money to give me up to my death! Go on, Paul, you ain't human even! You got poison in your eyes an' teeth like wolves'! Go on an' whistle so they'll come an' take me! Go on, I says! Now I see the kind o' man you is an' I'll despise you to the day o' judgment! [_She is about to run from the room when policeman SCHIERKE and QUAQUARO appear._ SCHIERKE Hold on! Nobody can't get outa this room. JOHN Come right in, Emil! You c'n come in reel quiet, officer. Everything in order here an' all right. QUAQUARO Don't get excited, Paul! This here don' concern you! JOHN [_With rising rage._] Did you laugh, Emil? QUAQUARO Man alive, why should I? Only Mr. Schierke is to take that there little one to the orphan house in a cab. SCHIERKE Yessir! That's right. Where is the child? JOHN How is I to know where all the brats offa junk heaps that witches use in their doin's gets to in the end? Watch the chimney! Maybe it flew outa there on a broomstick. MRS. JOHN Paul!--Now it _ain't_ to live! No, outa spite! Now it don' _has_ to live! Now it's gotta go down under the ground with me! [_With lightning-like rapidity she has run behind the partition and reappears at once with the child and makes for the door. HASSENREUTER and SPITTA throw themselves in front of the desperate woman, intent on saving the child._ HASSENREUTER