BOLZ (soothingly).

Right you are!  You are a loyal comrade.  And so peace, friendship, courage!  Your old Colonel won’t be inexorable.

OLDENDORF.

He has grown intimate with Senden, who flatters him in every way, and has plans, I fear, which affect me also.  I should feel still more worried but for knowing that I have now a good advocate in the Colonel’s house.  Adelaide Runeck has just arrived.

BOLZ.

Adelaide Runeck?  She into the bargain! (Quickly calling through the door on the right.) Kaempe, the article against the knight of the arrow is not to be written.  Understand?

Enter KAeMPE.

KAeMPE (at the door, pen in hand).

But what is to be written, then?

BOLZ.

The devil only knows!  See here!  Perhaps I can induce Oldendorf to write the leading article for tomorrow himself.  But at all events you must have something on hand.

KAeMPE.

But what?

BOLZ (excitedly).

For all I care write about emigration to Australia; that, at any rate, will give no offense.

KAeMPE.

Good!  Am I to encourage it or advise against it?

BOLZ (quickly).

Advise against it, of course; we need every one who is willing to work here at home.  Depict Australia as a contemptible hole.  Be perfectly truthful but make it as black as possible—­how the Kangaroo, balled into a heap, springs with invincible malice at the settler’s head, while the duckbill nips at the back of his legs; how the gold-seeker has, in winter, to stand up to his neck in salt water while for three months in summer he has not a drop to drink; how he may live through all that only to be eaten up at last by thievish natives.  Make it very vivid and end up with the latest market prices for Australian wool from the Times.  You’ll find what books you need in the library. [Slams the door to.]

OLDENDORF (at the table).

Do you know Miss Runeck?  She often inquires about you in her letters to Ida.

BOLZ.

Indeed?  Yes, to be sure, I know her.  We are from the same village—­she from the manor-house, I from the parsonage.  My father taught us together.  Oh, yes, I know her!

OLDENDORF.

How comes it that you have drifted so far apart?  You never speak of her.

BOLZ.

H’m!  It is an old story—­family quarrels, Montagues and Capulets.  I have not seen her for a long time.

OLDENDORF (smiling).

I hope that you too were not estranged by politics.

BOLZ.

Politics did, indeed, have something to do with our separation; you see it is the common misfortune that party life destroys friendship.

OLDENDORF.

Sad to relate!  In religion any educated man will tolerate the convictions of another; but in politics we treat each other like reprobates if there be the slightest shade of difference of opinion between us.