Aune: Do you mean that you can contemplate discharging me?--Me, whose father and grandfather worked in your yard all their lives, as I have done myself--?

Bernick: Who is it that is forcing me to do it?

Aune: You are asking what is impossible, Mr. Bernick.

Bernick: Oh, where there's a will there's a way. Yes or no; give me a decisive answer, or consider yourself discharged on the spot.

Aune (coming a step nearer to him): Mr. Bernick, have you ever realised what discharging an old workman means? You think he can look about for another job? Oh, yes, he can do that; but does that dispose of the matter? You should just be there once, in the house of a workman who has been discharged, the evening he comes home bringing all his tools with him.

Bernick: Do you think I am discharging you with a light heart? Have I not always been a good master to you?

Aune: So much the worse, Mr. Bernick. Just for that very reason those at home will not blame you; they will say nothing to me, because they dare not; but they will look at me when I am not noticing, and think that I must have deserved it. You see, sir, that is--that is what I cannot bear. I am a mere nobody, I know; but I have always been accustomed to stand first in my own home. My humble home is a little community too, Mr. Bernick--a little community which I have been able to support and maintain because my wife has believed in me and because my children have believed in me. And now it is all to fall to pieces.

Bernick: Still, if there is nothing else for it, the lesser must go down before the greater; the individual must be sacrificed to the general welfare. I can give you no other answer; and that, and no other, is the way of the world. You are an obstinate man, Aune! You are opposing me, not because you cannot do otherwise, but because you will not exhibit 'the superiority of machinery over manual labour'.

Aune: And you will not be moved, Mr. Bernick, because you know that if you drive me away you will at all events have given the newspapers proof of your good will.

Bernick: And suppose that were so? I have told you what it means for me--either bringing the Press down on my back, or making them well-disposed to me at a moment when I am working for an objective which will mean the advancement of the general welfare. Well, then, can I do otherwise than as I am doing? The question, let me tell you, turns upon this--whether your home is to be supported, as you put it, or whether hundreds of new homes are to be prevented from existing--hundreds of homes that will never be built, never have a fire lighted on their hearth, unless I succeed in carrying through the scheme I am working for now. That is the reason why I have given you your choice.

Aune: Well, if that is the way things stand, I have nothing more to say.

Bernick: Hm--my dear Aune, I am extremely grieved to think that we are to part.

Aune: We are not going to part, Mr. Bernick.

Bernick: How is that?

Aune: Even a common man like myself has something he is bound to maintain.

Bernick: Quite so, quite so--then I presume you think you may promise--?

Aune: The "Indian Girl" shall be ready to sail the day after tomorrow.

(Bows and goes out to the right.)

Bernick: Ah, I have got the better of that obstinate fellow! I take it as a good omen. (HILMAR comes in through the garden door, smoking a cigar.)

Hilmar (as he comes up the steps to the verandah): Good morning, Betty!

Good morning, Karsten!

Mrs. Bernick: Good morning.

Hilmar: Ah, I see you have been crying, so I suppose you know all about it too?

Mrs. Bernick: Know all about what?

Hilmar: That the scandal is in full swing. Ugh!

Bernick: What do you mean?

Hilmar (coming into the room): Why, that our two friends from America are displaying themselves about the streets in the company of Dina Dorf.

Mrs. Bernick (coming in after him): Hilmar, is it possible?

Hilmar: Yes, unfortunately, it is quite true. Lona was even so wanting in tact as to call after me, but of course I appeared not to have heard her.

Bernick: And no doubt all this has not been unnoticed.

Hilmar: You may well say that. People stood still and looked at them.

It spread like wildfire through the town--just like a prairie fire out West. In every house people were at the windows waiting for the procession to pass, cheek by jowl behind the curtains--ugh! Oh, you must excuse me, Betty, for saying "ugh"--this has got on my nerves. If it is going on, I shall be forced to think about getting right away from here.

Mrs. Bernick: But you should have spoken to him and represented to him that--

Hilmar: In the open street? No, excuse me, I could not do that. To think that the fellow should dare to show himself in the town at all!

Well, we shall see if the Press doesn't put a stopper on him; yes--forgive me, Betty, but--

Bernick: The Press, do you say? Have you heard a hint of anything of the sort?

Hilmar: There are such things flying about. When I left here yesterday evening I looked in at the club, because I did not feel well. I saw at once, from the sudden silence that fell when I went in, that our American couple had been the subject of conversation. Then that impudent newspaper fellow, Hammer, came in and congratulated me at the top of his voice on the return of my rich cousin.

Bernick: Rich?

Hilmar: Those were his words. Naturally I looked him up and down in the manner he deserved, and gave him to understand that I knew nothing about Johan Tonnesen's being rich. "Really," he said, "that is very remarkable. People usually get on in America when they have something to start with, and I believe your cousin did not go over there quite empty-handed."

Bernick: Hm--now will you oblige me by--

Mrs. Bernick (distressed): There, you see, Karsten!

Hilmar: Anyhow, I have spent a sleepless night because of them. And here he is, walking about the streets as if nothing were the matter.

Why couldn't he disappear for good and all? It really is insufferable how hard some people are to kill.

Mrs. Bernick: My dear Hilmar, what are you saying P

Hilmar: Oh, nothing. But here this fellow escapes with a whole skin from railway accidents and fights with California grizzlies and Blackfoot Indians--has not even been scalped--. Ugh, here they come!

Bernick (looking down the street): Olaf is with them too!

Hilmar: Of course! They want to remind everybody that they belong to the best family in the town. Look there!--look at the crowd of loafers that have come out of the chemist's to stare at them and make remarks.

My nerves really won't stand it; how a man is to be expected to keep the banner of the Ideal flying under such circumstances, I--

Bernick: They are coming here. Listen, Betty; it is my particular wish that you should receive them in the friendliest possible way.

Mrs. Bernick: Oh, may I, Karsten.

Bernick: Certainly, certainly--and you too, Hilmar. It is to be hoped they will not stay here very long; and when we are quite by ourselves--no allusions to the past; we must not hurt their feelings in any way.

Mrs. Bernick: How magnanimous you are, Karsten!

Bernick: Oh, don't speak of that.