Offend no one, and bad men least of all. Where’s your father? CLARA. Gone to see the wood-cutter in the hills. WOLFRAM. I’ll ride out and look for him. I’ve already been at the mayor’s, but didn’t find him at home. If I had, your brother would have been here by this time. However, the secretary sent a messenger at once. You’ll see him before night. (_Goes out._) SCENE 4 CLARA (_alone_). Now I ought to be glad. O God! And all I can think of is--“It’s only you now.” And yet I feel as if I’m bound to think of something soon that will put it all right again. SCENE 5 SECRETARY (_entering_). Good-day. CLARA (_grasping chair as if falling_). He! Oh, if only he hadn’t come back---- SEC. Your father’s not at home? CLARA. No. SEC. I’ve brought good news. Your brother, Miss--Oh, Clara, I can’t go on talking in this stiff way to you, with all the old tables and cupboards and chairs around me; my old acquaintances, that we played among when we were children. Good-day, you there! (_Nodding to a cupboard._) How are you? You haven’t changed.--I should think they’d put their heads together and laugh at me for a fool if I don’t call you “Clara” as I used to.[20] If you don’t like it, just think--“The poor chap’s dreaming, I’ll wake him up--I’ll go up to him and show him (_with a toss of head_) I’m not a little girl now”--that was your mark when you were eleven (_pointing to a mark on the door_)--“but a proper grown-up, that can reach the sugar when it’s put on the side-board.” Do you remember? That was the spot, that was the stronghold, safe from us, even when it stood unlocked. When the sugar was there, we used to play at catching flies, because we couldn’t bear to let them, flying about so merrily, get at what we couldn’t reach! CLARA. I thought people forgot all those things when they had to study hundreds and thousands of books. SEC. They do forget! I wonder what don’t people forget over Justinian and Gaius! Boys, that kick against the A B C so obstinately, know why they do it. They have a sort of feeling that, if they leave the spelling-book alone, they’ll never get at cross-purposes with the Bible. It’s disgraceful how they tempt the innocent souls with the red cock, and the basket of eggs, till they say A of their own accord--and then there’s no holding them! They tear down hill from A to Z, and on and on, till they are in the midst of _Corpus Juris_ and realise to their horror what a desert they’ve been enticed into by those curséd twenty-six letters, which they first used in their play to make tasty, sweet-scented words like “cherry” and “rose.” CLARA. And what happens then? (_Absently without interest._) SEC.