MELCHIOR--On that point, Moritz, I wouldn’t waste much thought. By all I can make out, there is no definite age for this phantom’s first appearance. You know that big Lämmermeier with the straw-colored hair and the big nose? He’s three years older than me, but Hansy Rilow says that to this very day he dreams of nothing but tarts and apricot jelly. MORITZ--I ask you, how can Hansy Rilow tell about that? MELCHIOR--He’s asked him. MORITZ--He’s asked him?--I’d never have dared to ask anybody! MELCHIOR--You just asked me, didn’t you? MORITZ--Yes, I did!--Maybe Hansy had made his will too, beforehand!--Isn’t it a queer game the world plays with us?! And we’re supposed to be grateful! I don’t remember having felt the least desire for this sort of disturbance.--Why couldn’t I have been left sleeping quietly until everything was still again! Father and mother could have had a hundred better children. But here I am, with no idea how I got here, and now I must be responsible for not having stayed away!--Haven’t you sometimes thought about that too, Melchior: in what kind of a way exactly we got mixed up in this whirl? MELCHIOR--Do you mean you don’t know that either, Moritz? MORITZ--How should I know?--I see how the hens lay eggs and hear how Mama says she carried me under her heart; but is that enough?--And I remember being embarrassed even at five years old when someone turned up the queen of hearts, she was so décolleté. That feeling has gone; but to-day I can scarcely speak to any girl any more without something abominable coming into my head--and I swear to you, Melchior, I don’t know =what=! MELCHIOR--I’ll tell you the whole thing. I’ve gotten it partly out of books, partly from pictures, partly from observations of nature. You’ll be surprised. It made me an atheist at first. I told George Zirschnitz about it, too. He wanted to tell Hansy Rilow, but Hansy had learned it all from his French governess when he was a kid. MORITZ--I’ve gone through Meyer’s Abridged from A to Z. Words! just words and more words! Not one simple explanation! Oh, this reticence! What good to me is an encyclopædia that has nothing to say on the most vital question of all? MELCHIOR--Did you ever see two dogs running about the streets? MORITZ--No!--Don’t tell me anything yet--not to-day, Melchior! I’ve still got Central America and Louis XV before me, not to speak of the sixty lines of Homer, the seven equations, the Latin Comp.--I should lose out at everything to-morrow again. If I am to drudge successfully I must be as dull as an ox. MELCHIOR--But come up to my room with me. In three-quarters of an hour I’ll have the Homer, the algebra, and =two= Latin Comp.’s. I’ll put a few harmless blunders into yours, and the thing’s done. Mama’ll make us some lemonade again, and we’ll talk comfortably about propagation.