JULIUS

I loaned 'em to Karl Machnow.

MRS. WOLFF

[_After a pause._] If only you wasn't such a coward!--We might get a few loads o' wood in a hurry, an' we wouldn't have to work ourselves blue in the face neither.--No, nor we wouldn't have to go very far for 'em.

JULIUS

Aw, let me eat a bite, will you?

MRS. WOLFF

[_Punches his head amicably._] Don't always be so rough, I'm goin' to be good to you now for onct. You watch. [_Fetching a bottle of whiskey and showing it to him._] Here! See? I brought that for you. Now you c'n make a friendly face, all right.

[_She fills a gla.s.s for her husband._

JULIUS

[_Drinks._] That's fine--in this cold weather--fine.

MRS. WOLFF

Well, you see? Don't I take care o' you?

JULIUS

That was pretty good, pretty good all right.

[_He fills the gla.s.s anew and drinks._

MRS. WOLFF

[_After a pause. She is splitting kindling wood and eating a bite now and then._] Wulkow--that feller--he's a regular rascal--. He always--acts--as if he was hard up.

JULIUS

Aw, he'd better shut up--he with his trade!

MRS. WOLFF

You heard that about the beaver coat, didn't you?

JULIUS

Naw, I didn't hear nothin'.

MRS. WOLFF

[_With a.s.sumed carelessness._] Didn't you hear the girl tell how Mrs.

Krueger has given Krueger a fur coat?

JULIUS

Well, them people has the money.

MRS. WOLFF

That's true. An' then Wulkow was sayin' ... you musta heard ... that if he could get hold of a coat like that some day, he'd give as much as a seventy crowns for it.

JULIUS

You just let him go and get into trouble his own self.

MRS. WOLFF

[_After a pause, refilling her husband's gla.s.s._] Come now, you c'n stand another.

JULIUS

Well, go ahead, go ahead! What in...!

_MRS. WOLFF gets out a little note book and turns over the leaves._

JULIUS

How much is it we put aside since July?

MRS. WOLFF

About thirty crowns has been paid off.

JULIUS

An' that'll leave ... leave ...

MRS. WOLFF

That'll still leave seventy. You don't get along very fast this way.

Fifty, sixty crowns--all in a lump; if you could add that onct! Then the lot would be paid for all right. Then maybe we could borrow a couple o'

hundred and build up a few pretty rooms. We can't take no summer boarders like this an' it's the summer boarders what brings the money.

JULIUS

Well, go ahead! What are you ...

MRS. WOLFF

[_Resolutely._] My, but you're a slow crittur, Julius! Would _you've_ gone an' bought that lot? An' if we wanted to go an' sell it now, we could be gettin' twice over what we paid for it! I got a different kind of a nature! Lord, if you had one like it!