MUeLLER.

But now you know, don’t you, where you are?

LEUTNER.

Yes, but you certainly mustn’t know that so quickly; why, the very best part of the fun consists in getting at it little by little.

BARTHEL.

I think, brother Gottlieb, you will also be satisfied with this division; unfortunately you are the youngest, and so you must grant us some privileges.

GOTTLIEB.

Yes, to be sure.

SCHLOSS.

But why doesn’t the court of awards interfere in the inheritance?  What improbabilities!

LORENZ.

So then we’re going now, dear Gottlieb; farewell, don’t let time hang heavy on your hands.

GOTTLIEB.

Good-bye.

[Exit the brothers.]

GOTTLIEB (alone).

They are going away—­and I am alone.  We all three have our lodgings.  Lorenz, of course, can till the ground with his horse, Barthel can slaughter and pickle his ox and live on it a while—­but what am I, poor unfortunate, to do with my cat?  At the most, I can have a muff for the winter made out of his fur, but I think he is even shedding it now.  There he lies asleep quite comfortably—­poor Hinze!  Soon we shall have to part.  I am sorry I brought him up, I know him as I know myself—­but he will have to believe me, I cannot help myself, I must really sell him.  He looks at me as though he understood.  I could almost begin to cry.

[He walks up and down, lost in thought.]

MUeLLER.

Well, you see now, don’t, you, that it’s going to be a touching picture of family life?  The peasant is poor and without money; now, in the direst need, he will sell his faithful pet to some susceptible young lady, and in the end that will be the foundation of his good fortune.  Probably it is an imitation of Kotzebue’s Parrot; here the bird is replaced by a cat and the play runs on of itself.

FISCHER.

Now that it’s working out this way, I am satisfied too.

HINZE, the tom-cat (rises, stretches, arches his back, yawns, then speaks).

My dear Gottlieb—­I really sympathize with you.

GOTTLIEB (astonished).

What, puss, you are speaking?

THE CRITICS (in the pit).

The cat is talking?  What does that mean, pray?

FISCHER.

It’s impossible for me to get the proper illusion here.

MUeLLER.

Rather than let myself be disappointed like this I never want to see another play all my life.

HINZE.

Why should I not be able to speak, Gottlieb?

GOTTLIEB.

I should not have suspected it; I never heard a cat speak in all my life.

HINZE.

Because we do not join in every conversation, you think we’re nothing but dogs.

GOTTLIEB.

I think your only business is to catch mice.