Did you hear, Paul, that Mrs. k.n.o.bbe's youngest over the way has been taken off again?

JOHN

No. What chance did I have to hear that? But if it's dead, it's a good thing, Emil. When I saw the poor crittur a week ago when it had convulsions an' Selma brought it in an' me an' mother gave it a spoonful o' sugar an' water--well, it was pretty near ready for heaven then.

QUAQUARO

An' you mean to tell me that you didn't hear nothin' o' the circ.u.mstances, about the how an' the why o' that child's death?

JOHN

Naw! [_He fetches a long tobacco pipe from behind the sofa._] Wait a minute! I'll light a pipe first! I didn't have no chanct to hear nothin'.

QUAQUARO

Well, I'm surprised that your wife didn't write you nothin' at all.

JOHN

Aw, since we has a child o' our own, mother's taken no interest in them k.n.o.bbe brats no more.

QUAQUARO

[_Observing JOHN with lurking curiosity._] You're wife was reel crazy to have a son, wasn't she?

JOHN

Well, that's natural. D'you think I wasn't? What's a man to work for?

What do I slave away for? It's different thing savin' a good lump o'

money for your own son from doin' it for your sister's children.

QUAQUARO

So you don't know that a strange girl came here an' swore that the k.n.o.bbe woman's child wasn't hers but belonged to the girl?

JOHN

Is that so? Well, Mrs. k.n.o.bbe an' child stealin'--them two things don't go together. Now if it'd been mother, that would ha' been more likely.

But not that k.n.o.bbe woman! But tell me, Emil, what's all this here business about?

QUAQUARO

Well, one person says one thing an' another says another. The k.n.o.bbe woman says that certain people has started a plot with detectives an'

such like to get hold o' the brat. An' there ain't no doubt o' this. It's proved that the child was hers. C'n you maybe give me a tip as to where your brother-in-law's been keepin' hisself the past few days?

JOHN

You mean the butcher in Hangelsberg?

QUAQUARO

Naw, I don' mean the husband o' your sister, but the feller what's brother o' your wife.

JOHN

It's Bruno you mean?

QUAQUARO

Sure, that's the feller.

JOHN

How do I know? I'd sooner be watchin' if the dogs still plays on the curb. I don't want to have no dealin's with Bruno.

QUAQUARO

Listen to me, Paul. But don't get mad. They knows at the police station that Bruno was seen in company o' the Polish girl what wanted to claim this here child, first right outside o' the door here an' then at a certain place on Sh.o.r.e street where the tanners sometimes looses their soakin' hides. An' now the girl's jus' disappeared. I don' know nothin'

o' the particulars, excep' that the police is huntin' for the girl.

JOHN

[_Resolutely putting aside the long pipe which he had lit._] I don' know, but I can't take no enjoyment in it this mornin'. I don' know what's gotten into me. I was as jolly as can be. An' now all of a sudden I feel so dam' mean I'd like to go straight back to Hamburg an' hear an' see nothin' more!--Why d'you come aroun' with stories like that?

QUAQUARO

I jus' thought I'd tell you what happened while you an' your wife was away right here in your own house?

JOHN

In my own house?

QUAQUARO

That's it! Yessir! They says that Selma pushed the perambulator with her little brother in here where the strange girl an' her friend came an'

took him an' carried him off. But upstairs, in the actor's place, they caught her.

JOHN

What's that?

QUAQUARO

So up there the strange girl an' the k.n.o.bbe woman pretty near tore each other's hair out over the child's body.

JOHN

What I'd like to know is how all that concerns me? Ain't there trouble here over some girl most o' the time? Let 'em go on! I don' care! That is to say, Emil, if there ain't more to it than you're tellin' me.