FLAMM

[_Stops looking at the gun. Lightly._] Is it possible? And are you in such a hurry about it?

MRS. FLAMM

[_Banteringly._] How does that concern you, Christie? Dear me, let the good folks marry in peace! You're a reg'lar preacher, you are! If that man had his will, father Bernd, there wouldn't be hardly anything but single men and women.

FLAMM

Well, marriage is a risky business,--You're the bookbinder August Keil.

AUGUST

At your service.

FLAMM

You live over in Wandriss? And you've bought the Lachmann house?

AUGUST

Exactly.

FLAMM

And you want to open a book-shop?

AUGUST

A book and stationery shop. Yes. Probably,

BERND

He thinks o' sellin' mostly devotional books.

FLAMM

There's some land that belongs to the Lachmann house, isn't there? It must be there by the big pear tree?

BERND _and_ AUGUST

[_At the same time._] Yes.

FLAMM

Why then our properties adjoin! [_He lays down the barrels of the gun, searches in his pockets for a bunch of keys and then calls out through the door:_] Minna! Come and wheel your mistress out!

[_Resignedly though unable to control his disquiet, he sits down at the desk._

MRS. FLAMM

A very chivalrous man! But he's in the right! I'm in the way just now!

[_To the neat maid who has come in and stepped behind her._] Come, my girl, wheel me into the den. An' you might well pin up your hair more smoothly.

_MRS. FLAMM and the MAID disappear in the den._

FLAMM

I'm really sorry for the Lachmanns. [_To KEIL._] You invested your savings in a mortgage on that property, didn't you? [_AUGUST coughs excitedly and in embarra.s.sment._] Well, that's all the same in the end!

Whoever owns that property, though, has cause to congratulate himself.--So you want to marry? Well, all that's wanting is the lady! How is that? Is the lady stubborn?

AUGUST

[_Very much wrought up and quite determined._] We're at one entirely, so far as I know.

BERND

I'll go an' fetch her, Mr. Flamm.

[_Exit rapidly._

FLAMM

[_Who has opened the desk in obvious absentmindedness, observes BERND'S departure too late._] Nonsense, there's no such terrible hurry. [_For a few moments he gazes in some consternation at the door through which BERND has disappeared. Then he shrugs his shoulders._] Do as you please!

Exactly as you please! I can light a pipe in the meanwhile. [_He gets up, takes a tobacco pouch from the bookcase and a pipe from a rack on the wall, fills the pipe and lights it. To AUGUST._] Do you smoke?

AUGUST

No.

FLAMM

Nor take snuff?

AUGUST

No.

FLAMM

And you drink no whisky, no beer, no wine?

AUGUST

Nothing except the wine in the sacrament.

FLAMM