#THE JOURNALISTS#

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

BERG, retired Colonel.

IDA, his daughter.

ADELAIDE RUNECK.

SENDEN, landed proprietor.
_
PROFESSOR OLDENDORF, editor-in-chief. |
|
CONRAD BOLZ, editor. |
|
BELLMAUS, on the staff.. |
|
KAeMPE, on the staff. } of the newspaper
| The Union. 
KOeRNER, on the staff. |
|
PRINTER HENNING, owner. |
|
MILLER, factotum. _|

_
BLUMENBERG, editor.                   |
} of the newspaper
SCHMOCK, on the staff.	         _|    Coriolanus.

PIEPENBRINK, wine merchant and voter.

LOTTIE, his wife.

BERTHA, their daughter.

  KLEINMICHEL citizen and voter.

  FRITZ, his son.

  JUDGE SCHWARZ.

  A foreign ballet-dancer.

  KORB, secretary for Adelaide’s estate.

  CARL, the Colonel’s man-servant.

  A waiter.

  Club-guests. Deputations of citizens.

Place of action:  A provincial capital.

THE JOURNALISTS[1] (1853)

TRANSLATED BY ERNEST F. HENDERSON, PH.D., L.H.D.

ACT I

SCENE I

A summer parlor in the COLONEL’S house.  Handsome furnishings.  In the centre of rear wall an open door, behind it a verandah and garden; on the sides of rear wall large windows.  Right and left, doors; on the right, well in front, a window.  Tables, chairs, a small sofa.

IDA is sitting in front on the right reading a book.  The COLONEL enters through centre door with an open box in his hand in which are dahlias.

COLONEL.

Here, Ida, are the new varieties of dahlias our gardener has grown.  You’ll have to rack your brains to find names for them.  Day after tomorrow is the Horticultural Society meeting, when I am to exhibit and christen them.

IDA.

This light-colored one here should be called the “Adelaide.”

COLONEL.

Adelaide Buneck, of course.  Your own name is out of the running, for as a little dahlia you have long been known to the flower-trade.

IDA.

One shall be called after your favorite writer, “Boz.”

COLONEL.

Splendid!  And it must be a really fine one, this yellow one here with violet points.  And the third one—­how shall we christen that?

IDA (stretching out her hand entreatingly to her father).

“Edward Oldendorf.”

COLONEL.

What!  The professor?  The editor?  Oh no, that will not do!  It was bad enough for him to take over the paper; but that he now has allowed himself to be led by his party into running for Parliament—­that I can never forgive him.