BELLMAUS.

It just fitted.  There were exactly six lines left.

BOLZ.

That is an excuse, but not a good one.  Invent your own stories.  What are you a journalist for?  Make a little “Communication,” an observation, for instance, on human life in general, or something about dogs running around loose in the streets; or choose a bloodcurdling story such as a murder out of politeness, or how a woodchuck bit seven sleeping children, or something of that kind.  So infinitely much happens, and so infinitely much does not happen, that an honest newspaper man ought never to be without news.

BELLMAUS.

Give it here, I will change it.

[Goes to the table, looks into a printed sheet, cuts a clipping from it with large shears, and pastes it on the copy of the newspaper.]

BOLZ.

That’s right, my son, so do, and mend thy ways.

[Opening the door on the right.]

Kaempe, can you come in a moment? (To MILLER, who is waiting at the door.) Take that proof straight to the press!

[MILLER takes the sheet from BELLMAUS and hurries off.]

Enter KAeMPE.

KAeMPE.

But I can’t write anything decent while you are making such a noise.

BOLZ.

You can’t?  What have you just written, then?  At most, I imagine, a letter to a ballet-dancer or an order to your tailor.

BELLMAUS.

No, he writes tender letters.  He is seriously in love, for he took me walking in the moonlight yesterday and scorned the idea of a drink.

KAeMPE (who has seated himself comfortably).

Gentlemen, it is unfair to call a man away from his work for the sake of making such poor jokes.

BOLZ.

Yes, yes, he evidently slanders you when he maintains that you love anything else but your new boots and to some small degree your own person.  You yourself are a love-spurting nature, little Bellmaus.  You glow like a fusee whenever you see a young lady.  Spluttering and smoky you hover around her, and yet don’t dare even to address her.  But we must be lenient with him; his shyness is to blame.  He blushes in woman’s presence, and is still capable of lovely emotions, for he started out to be a lyric poet.

BELLMAUS.

I don’t care to be continually reproached with my poems.  Did I ever read them to you?

BOLZ.

No, thank Heaven, that audacity you never had. (Seriously.) But, now, gentlemen, to business.  Today’s number is ready.  Oldendorf is not yet here, but meanwhile, let us hold a confidential session.  Oldendorf must be chosen deputy from this town to the next Parliament; our party and the Union must put that through.  How does our stock stand today?

KAeMPE.