SCENE I.

A room in the Privy Counsellor's, furnished in the modern stile.

REISSMAN, LEWIS.

_Lew._ I shall have the honour to let the Privy Counsellor know, that the Aulic Counsellor Reissman waits. (Steps into a closet, out of which the Privy Counsellor immediately comes, and Lewis sometime after.)

_Reiss._ I fly to congratulate you on your well-merited elevation.

_P. Coun._ I thank you with all my heart. I shall never forget that I am indebted to you for it.

_Reiss._ I beg,--nay, I entreat--

_P. Coun._ Your advice.

_Reiss._ Too much modesty.

_P. Coun._ Your self-denial. For you yourself had the justest claims to all the honours, with which you permitted me to be invested.

_Reiss._ _Audaces fortuna._--I am too old. Now you should enjoy life, my friend. The merchant will endeavour to get a hundred per cent. if he can; why should the statesman sell his labour to the state at three?

Away with the silly prejudice, and the retail-trade of your conscientious precepts; carry on your business wholesale, on the sacred principle of self-preservation.

_P. Coun._ I partly do so, but my father--

_Reiss._ I have paid the old honest man a visit.

_P. Coun._ Very kind of you! very kind of you indeed!

_Reiss._ He persists in his determination of setting the will aside.

_P. Coun._ Ridiculous!

_Reiss._ He will not suffer the children to go to the hospital, because the inst.i.tution is intended for old and decayed people.

_P. Coun._ Mere formalities, attached to old age!

_Reiss._ As for the rest, he appeared pleased with your proposed union with my daughter.

_P. Coun._ Was he!

_Reiss._ He said many handsome things of the girl.

_P. Coun._ Too much cannot be said in her praise. She is an angel.

_Reiss._ I humbly thank you.--But he will not accept the office of mayor on any account.

_P. Coun._ I thought so;--but he must.

_Reiss._ Oh, yes! I must request you to carry that point, for--

_P. Coun._ Without doubt.

_Reiss._ For, however pleased I may be with your connection, I could not possibly think of giving my daughter to a man whose father earned his bread as a mechanic.

_P. Coun._ Leave me alone for that. His whole mode of life will be changed. Nay, this change has in some measure taken place already.

_Reiss._ Bravo, bravo!

_P. Coun._ His mansion--

_Reiss._ Right, right!

_P. Coun._ His dress--

_Reiss._ Very necessary.

_P. Coun._ Those pitiful caps of my sister--

_Reiss._ Oh, nice! Oh! there you remove a heavy weight from my mind.

And then the chief object, that law-suit--

_P. Coun._ You cannot lose it. The will--?

_Reiss._ I will stick to that, as if rivetted to it with iron.

_P. Coun._ It speaks in your favour in all its forms.

_Reiss._ But he is so obstinate in pursuit of the cause, and will--

_P. Coun._ He cannot gain it.

_Reiss._ I think so. But then he has engaged that old foolish lawyer Wellenberg, that--

_P. Coun._ A fool, and a pedant.

_Reiss._ True! But then he is such a conscientious fellow; and, besides, you know he is called the champion of the poor and the guardian of orphans.

_P. Coun._ I have his opinion in my study. Mere declamation! nothing else. Your answer is sound, legal, and argumentative, and then the testamentary disposition is so plain that it cannot be set aside. If you were inclined to make the plaintiff a present--

_Reiss._ O yes, O yes! notwithstanding I am very economical; for all that I acquire is solely intended for my child, and when it shall please heaven to call me, it will devolve to you, my dear Sir.

_P. Coun._ Very kind;--but--

Enter LEWIS.

_Lew._ The widow Rieder--

_P. Coun._ Some other time.