PIEPENBRINK.  Come here, Lottie, your health is being drunk.

BOLZ.  Young lady, allow a stranger to drink to your future prosperity.

PIEPENBRINK.  What else do you suppose they are going to do in there?

FRITZ KLEINMICHEL.  I hear that at supper there are to be speeches, and the candidate for election, Colonel Berg, is to be introduced.

PIEPENBRINK.  A very estimable gentleman.

KLEINMICHEL.  Yes, it is a good choice the gentlemen on the committee have made.

ADELAIDE, who has been visible in the rear, now saunters in.

ADELAIDE.  He sitting here?  What sort of a company is that?

KAeMPE.  People say that Professor Oldendorf has a good chance of election.  Many are said to be going to vote for him.

PIEPENBRINK.  I have nothing to say against him, only to my mind he is too young.

SENDEN is seen in the rear, later BLUMENBERG and guests.

SENDEN.  You here, Miss Runeck?

ADELAIDE.  I’m amusing myself with watching those queer people.  They act as though the rest of the company were non-existent.

SENDEN.  What do I see?  There sits the Union itself and next to one of the most important personages of the fete!

[The music ceases.]

BOLZ (who has meanwhile been conversing with MRS. PIEPENBRINK but has listened attentively—­to MR. PIEPENBRINK).  There, you see the gentlemen cannot desist from talking politics after all. (To PIEPENBRINK.) Did you not mention Professor Oldendorf?

PIEPENBRINK.  Yes, my jolly Doctor, just casually.

BOLZ.  When you talk of him I heartily pray you to say good things about him; for he is the best, the noblest man I know.

PIEPENBRINK.  Indeed?  You know him?

KLEINMICHEL.  Are you possibly a friend of his!

BOLZ.  More than that.  Were the professor to say to me today:  “Bolz, it will help me to have you jump into the water,” I should have to jump in, unpleasant as it would be to me just at this moment to drown in water.

PIEPENBRINK.  Oho!  That is strong!

BOLZ.  In this company I have no right to speak of candidates for election.  But if I did have a member to elect he should be the one—­he, first of all.

PIEPENBRINK.  But you are very much prejudiced in the man’s favor.

BOLZ.  His political views do not concern me here at all.  But what do I demand of a member?  That he be a man; that he have a warm heart and a sure judgment, and that he know unwaveringly and unquestionably what is good and right; furthermore, that he have the strength to do what he knows to be right without delay, without hesitation.

PIEPENBRINK.  Bravo!

KLEINMICHEL.  But the Colonel, too, is said to be that kind of a man.

BOLZ.  Possibly he is, I do not know; but of Oldendorf I know it.  I looked straight into his heart on the occasion of an unpleasant experience I went through.  I was once on the point of burning to powder when he was kind enough to prevent it.  Him I have to thank for sitting here.  He saved my life.