SCHIGOLCH. But I can tell you what, those things must cost something over there! (Hugenberg has risen. Lulu sits on the arm of his chair.)

LULU. You've fallen into pretty company! I expect visitors, children!

SCHIGOLCH. I guess I've got to stick something in there, too. (He searches among the flowers on the table.)

LULU. Do I look well?

SCHIGOLCH. What are those you've got there?

LULU. Orchids. (Bending over Hugenberg.) Smell.

RODRIGO. Do you expect Prince Escerny?

LULU. (Shaking her head.) G.o.d forbid!

RODRIGO. So somebody else again--!

LULU. The prince has gone traveling.

RODRIGO. To put his kingdom up for auction?

LULU. He's spying out a fresh tribe in the neighborhood of Africa.

(Rises, hurries up the stairs, and steps into the gallery.)

RODRIGO. (To Schigolch.) He wanted to marry her originally.

SCHIGOLCH. (Sticking a lily in his b.u.t.ton-hole.) I, too, wanted to marry her originally.

RODRIGO. You wanted to marry her originally?

SCHIGOLCH. Didn't you, too, want to marry her originally?

RODRIGO. You bet I wanted to marry her originally!

SCHIGOLCH. Who has not wanted to marry her originally!!

RODRIGO. I would never have got a better!

SCHIGOLCH. She has let no one regret that he didn't marry her.

RODRIGO. Then she's not your child?

SCHIGOLCH. Never occurs to her.

HUGENBERG. What is her father's name then?

SCHIGOLCH. She has boasted of me!

HUGENBERG. What is her father's name then?

SCHIGOLCH. What's he say?

RODRIGO. What her father's name is.

SCHIGOLCH. She never had one.

LULU. (Comes down from the gallery and sits again on Hugenberg's chair-arm.) What have I never had?

ALL THREE. A father.

LULU. Yes, sure--I'm a wonder-child. (To Hugenberg.) How are you getting along with your father?

RODRIGO. He smokes a respectable cigar, anyway, the police-captain.

SCHIGOLCH. Have you locked up upstairs?

LULU. There is the key.

SCHIGOLCH. Better have left it in the lock.

LULU. Why?

SCHIGOLCH. So no one can unlock it from outside.

RODRIGO. Isn't he at the stock-exchange?

LULU. Oh, yes, but he suffers from persecution-mania.

RODRIGO. I take him by the feet, and yup!--there he stays sticking to the roof.

LULU. He hunts you into a mouse-hole with the corner of his eye.

RODRIGO. What does he hunt? Who does he hunt? (Baring his arm.) Just look at this biceps!

LULU. Show me. (Goes left.)

RODRIGO. (Hitting himself on the muscle.) Granite. Wrought-iron!

LULU. (Feeling by turns Rodrigo's arm and her own.) If you only didn't have such long ears--

FERDINAND. (Entering, rear-centre.) Doctor Schon!

RODRIGO. The rogue! (Jumps up, starts behind the fire-screen, recoils.) G.o.d preserve me! (Hides, lower left, behind the curtains.)

SCHIGOLCH. Give me the key! (Takes it and drags himself up the stairs.)

LULU. (Hugenberg having slid under the table.) Show him in!

HUGENBERG. (Under the front edge of the table-cloth, listening; to himself.) If he doesn't stay--we'll be alone.