SOPHY.

The table here—­

WEILER (while they carry the table together, on the left).

Won’t Ulrich have an easy time of it, now that his old friend has become his master, and is going to be his father-in-law into the bargain!

SOPHY.

Nearer the stove.  We must get in one more table.

WEILER (chuckling to himself).

Regular ale-house politicians those two, Stein and Ulrich.  Every day they have a row.

SOPHY.

What are you talking there about a row?  They’re only fooling.

[Exit in a hurry; reenters immediately afterward.]

WEILER (going as far as the door, gesticulating behind her).

Fooling?  Don’t you believe it!  The one is hot-headed, the other obstinate.  Ever since there was talk of buying the estate, the clearing of the forest has been the daily apple of discord.  Rich people always pretend to know something, even if they don’t know the first thing.  Now Stein thinks that by cutting down every other row of trees in the forest the first would have more light and room for growing.  Maybe Godfrey has hunted that up in some old book.  But when he comes with that theory to Ulrich he strikes the wrong man.  Only day before yesterday I thought they were going to eat each other up, so that nothing would remain of either of them.  Stein says:  “The forest will be cleared.”  The forester:  “The forest will not be cleared.”  Stein:  “But it shall be cleared.”  The forester:  “It shall not be cleared.”  Stein jumps up, buttons his coat, two buttons at a time, knocks down two chairs, and is gone.  Well, I thought, that is the end of the friendship!  But Lord bless my soul!  That happened the night before last, and early yesterday morning—­it was scarcely dawn—­who comes whistling from the castle and knocks at the forester’s window, as though nothing had happened?  That’s Stein.  And who has already been waiting for a quarter of an hour and grunts forth from under his white moustache, “I’m coming?” That’s Ulrich.  And now both of them, without asking each other’s pardon, go together out into the forest, as though there never had been a quarrel!  Nobody takes any notice of it any longer.  At night they quarrel, in the morning they go together into the forest, as though it could not be otherwise.  But does he treat his boy any differently?  Robert?  Does he?  Didn’t he want to leave home half a dozen times?  And afterward he is too good.  Queer business that!

[During the last words he has retreated step by step before the table which ANDREW and WILLIAM are carrying in and placing against the table which already stands on the left in the direction from the footlights to the back of stage.]

SOPHY.

Put it here.  That’s it.  And now chairs, boys.  From the upper room. 
Weiler might—­

[ANDREW and WILLIAM exeunt.]