Nora.  Well, you got Papa’s signature, didn’t you?

Krogs. Oh, I got it right enough.  Unfortunately, it was dated three days after his decease—­now, how do you account for that?

Nora.  How?  Why, as poor Papa was dead, and couldn’t sign, I signed for him, that’s all!  Only somehow I forgot to put the date back. That’s how.  Didn’t I tell you I was a silly, unbusinesslike little thing?  It’s very simple.

Krogs. Very—­but what you did amounts to forgery, notwithstanding.  I happen to know, because I’m a lawyer, and have done a little in the forging way myself.  So, to come to the point—­if I get kicked out, I shall not go alone! [He bows, and goes out.

Nora.  It can’t be wrong!  Why no one but KROGSTAD would have been taken in by it!  If the Law says it’s wrong, the Law’s a goose—­a bigger goose than poor little me even! (To HELMER, who enters.) Oh, TORVALD, how you made me jump!

Helmer.  Has anybody called? (NORA shakes her head.) Oh, my little squirrel mustn’t tell naughty whoppers!  Why, I just met that fellow KROGSTAD in the hall.  He’s been asking you to get me to take him back—­now, hasn’t he?

Nora (walking about).  Do just see how pretty the Christmas-tree looks!

Helmer.  Never mind the tree—­I want to have this out about KROGSTAD.  I can’t take him back, because many years ago he forged a name.  As a lawyer, a close observer of human nature, and a Bank Manager, I have remarked that people who forge names seldom or never confide the fact to their children—­which inevitably brings moral contagion into the entire family.  From which it follows, logically, that KROGSTAD has been poisoning his children for years by acting a part, and is morally lost. (Stretches out his hands to her.) I can’t bear a morally lost Bank-cashier about me!

Nora.  But you never thought of dismissing him till CHRISTINA came!

Helmer.  H’m!  I’ve got some business to attend to—­so good-bye, little lark! [Goes into office and shuts door.

Nora (pale with terror).  If KROGSTAD poisons his children because he once forged a name, I must be poisoning EMMY, and BOB, and IVAR, because I forged Papa’s signature! (Short pause; she raises her head proudly.) After all, if I am a doll, I can still draw a logical induction!  I mustn’t play with the children any more—­(hotly)—­I don’t care—­I shall, though!  Who cares for KROGSTAD?

    [She makes a face, choking with suppressed tears, as Curtain
    falls.

N.B.—­The tremendous psychological problem of whether NORA is as much of a doll, a squirrel, and a lark, as she seems, and if so, whether it is her own fault, or HELMER’s or Society’s, will be solved in subsequent numbers.