BOLZ (aside).

This eternal Senden! (Aloud.) Your interest in him furnishes me grounds for avoiding further consequences.  I think I can manage it.

ADELAIDE.

I thank you.  And now let me tell you that you are a dangerous diplomatist.  You have inflicted a thorough defeat on this household.  On this unfortunate day but one thing has pleased me—­the one vote which sought to make you member of Parliament.

BOLZ.

It was a crazy idea of the honest wine-merchant.

ADELAIDE.

You took so much trouble to put your friend in, why did you not work for yourself?  The young man I used to know had lofty aims, and nothing seemed beyond the range of his soaring ambition.  Have you changed, or is the fire still burning?

BOLZ (smiling).

I have become a journalist, Miss Adelaide.

ADELAIDE.

Your friend is one, too.

BOLZ.

Only as a side issue.  But I belong to the guild.  He who has joined it may have the ambition to write wittily or well.  All that goes beyond that is not for us.

ADELAIDE.

Not for you?

BOLZ.

For that we are too flighty, too restless and scatter-brained.

ADELAIDE.

Are you in earnest about that, Conrad?

BOLZ.

Perfectly in earnest.  Why should I wish to seem to you different from what I am?  We journalists feed our minds on the daily news; we must taste the dishes Satan cooks for men down to the smallest morsel; so you really should make allowances for us.  The daily vexation over failure and wrong doing, the perpetual little excitements over all sorts of things—­that has an effect upon a man.  At first one clenches one’s fist, then one learns to laugh at it.  If you work only for the day you come to live for the day.

ADELAIDE (perturbed).

But that is sad, I think.

BOLZ.

On the contrary, it is quite amusing.  We buzz like bees, in spirit we fly through the whole world, suck honey when we find it, and sting when something displeases us.  Such a life is not apt to make great heroes, but queer dicks like us are also needed.

ADELAIDE (aside).

Now he too is at it, and he is even worse than the other one.

BOLZ.

We won’t waste sentiment on that account.  I scribble away so long as it goes.  When it no longer goes, others take my place and do the same.  When Conrad Bolz, the grain of wheat, has been crushed in the great mill, other grains fall on the stones until the flour is ready from which the future, possibly, will bake good bread for the benefit of the many.

ADELAIDE.

No, no, that is morbidness; such resignation is wrong.

BOLZ.