HABEBALD.

At your service, Herr Rector.

SONNENSTICH.

Leave that window shut likewise! I, for my part, am of the opinion that the air here leaves nothing to be desired!----Has any gentleman anything further to remark?----Let us suppose that we omitted to move the expulsion of our guilty pupil before the National Board of Education, then the National Board of Education would hold us responsible for the misfortune which has overwhelmed us. Of the various grammar schools visited by the epidemic of self-murder, those in which the devastation of self-murder has reached 25 per cent. have been closed by the National Board of Education. It is our duty, as the guardians and protectors of our inst.i.tute, to protect our inst.i.tute from this staggering blow. It grieves us deeply, gentlemen, that we are not in a position to consider the other qualifications of our guilt-laden pupil as mitigating circ.u.mstances. An indulgent treatment, which would allow our guilty pupil to be vindicated, would not in any conceivable way imaginable vindicate the present imperiled existence of our inst.i.tute. We see ourselves under the necessity of judging the guilt-laden that we may not be judged guilty ourselves.----Habebald!

HABEBALD.

At your service, Herr Rector!

SONNENSTICH.

Bring him up! (_Exit Habebald._)

ZUNGENSCHLAG.

If the pre-present atmosphere leaves little or nothing to desire, I should like to suggest that the other window be walled up during the summer va- va- va- vacation.

FLIEGENTOD.

If our esteemed colleague, Zungenschlag, does not find our room ventilated sufficiently, I should like to suggest that our esteemed colleague, Zungenschlag, have a ventilator set into his forehead.

ZUNGENSCHLAG.

I do- do- don't have to stand that!----I- I- I- I- do- do- don't have to st- st- st- stand rudeness!----I have my fi- fi- five senses!

SONNENSTICH.

I must ask our esteemed colleagues, Fliegentod and Zungenschlag, to preserve decorum. It seems to me that our guilt-laden pupil is already on the stairs.

(_Habebald opens the door, whereupon Melchior, pale but collected, appears before the meeting._)

SONNENSTICH.

Come nearer to the table!----After Herr Stiefel became aware of the profligate deed of his son, the distracted father searched the remaining effects of his son Moritz, hoping if possible, to find the cause of the abominable deed, and discovered among them, in an unexpected place, a ma.n.u.script, which, while it did not make us understand the abominable deed, threw an unfortunate and sufficient light upon the moral disorder of the criminal. This ma.n.u.script, in the form of a dialogue ent.i.tled "The Nuptial Sleep," ill.u.s.trated with life-size pictures full of shameless obscenity, has twenty pages of long explanations that seek to satisfy every claim a profligate imagination can make upon a lewd book.----

MELCHIOR.

I have----

SONNENSTICH.

You have to keep quiet!----After Herr Stiefel had questioningly handed us this ma.n.u.script and we had promised the distracted father to discover the author at any price, we compared the handwriting before us with the collected handwriting of the fellow-students of the deceased profligate, and concluded, in the unanimous judgment of the teaching staff, as well as with the full coincidence of a valued colleague, the master of calligraphy, that the resemblance to your----

MELCHIOR.

I have----

SONNENSTICH.

You have to keep quiet!----In spite of this likeness, recognized as crushing evidence by incontrovertible authority, we believe that we should allow ourselves to go further and to take the widest lat.i.tude in examining the guilty one at first hand, in order to make him answerable to this charge of an offense against morals, and to discover its relationship to the resultant suicide.----

MELCHIOR.

I have----

SONNENSTICH.

You have to answer the exact questions which I shall put to you, one after the other, with a plain and modest "yes" or "no."----Habebald!

HABEBALD.

At your service, Herr Rector!

SONNENSTICH.

The minutes!----I request our writing master, Herr Fliegentod, from now on to take down the proceedings as nearly verbatim as possible.----(_to Melchior._) Do you know this writing?

MELCHIOR.

Yes.

SONNENSTICH.

Do you know whose writing it is?

MELCHIOR.

Yes.

SONNENSTICH.

Is the writing in this ma.n.u.script yours?

MELCHIOR.

Yes.

SONNENSTICH.

Are you the author of this obscene ma.n.u.script?

MELCHIOR.

Yes----I request you, sir, to show me anything obscene in it.

SONNENSTICH.