[_Prevents him._] No sniffin' 'round in my pots.

MRS. MOTES

[_Who has observed everything distrustfully._] Mrs. Wolff, we've found something, too.

MRS. WOLFF

I ain't lost nothin'.

MRS. MOTES

There, look at these.

[_She shows her several wire snares._

MRS. WOLFF

[_Without losing her equanimity in the slightest._] I suppose them are snares?

MRS. MOTES

We found them quite in the neighbourhood here! Scarcely twenty paces from your garden.

MRS. WOLFF

Lord love you! The amount of poachin' that's done here!

MRS. MOTES

If you were to keep a sharp lookout, you might actually catch the poacher some day.

MRS. WOLFF

Aw, such things is no concern o' mine.

MOTES

If I could just get hold of a rascal like that. First, I'd give him something to remember me by, and then I'd mercilessly turn him over to the police.

MRS. MOTES

Mrs. Wolff have you got a few fresh eggs?

MRS. WOLFF

Now, in the middle of winter? They're pretty scarce!

MOTES

[_To JULIUS, who has just come in._] Forester Seidel has nabbed a poacher again. He'll be taken to the detention prison to-morrow. There's an officer with style about him. If I hadn't had my misfortune, I could have been a head forester to-day. I'd go after those dogs even more energetically.

MRS. WOLFF

There's many a one has had to pay for doin' that!

MOTES

Yes, if he's afraid. I'm not! I've denounced quite a few already.

[_Fixing his gaze keenly on MRS. WOLFF and her husband in turn._] And there are a few others whose time is coming. They'll run straight into my grip some day. These setters of snares needn't think that I don't know them. I know them very well.

MRS. MOTES

Have you been baking, perhaps, Mrs. Wolff? We're so tired of baker's bread.

MRS. WOLFF

I thought you was goin' to square your account.

MRS. MOTES

On Sat.u.r.day, as I've told you, Mrs. Wolff. My husband has been appointed editor of the magazine "Chase and Forest."

MRS. WOLFF

Aha, yes. I know what that means.

MRS. MOTES

But if I a.s.sure you, Mrs. Wolff! We've moved away from the Kruegers already.

MRS. WOLFF

Yes, you moved because you had to.

MRS. MOTES

We had to? Hubby, listen to this!--[_She gives a forced laugh._]--Mrs.

Wolff says that we had to move from Kruegers.

MOTES

[_Crimson with rage._] The reason why I moved away from that place?

You'll find it out some day. The man is a usurer and a cutthroat!

MRS. WOLFF

I don't know nothin' about that; I can't say nothin' about that.

MOTES