If I wake up
tomorrow as an owl with two tufts of feathers for ears and a mouse in
my beak, I will say, "All right," and remember that worse things have
happened.
ADELAIDE.
What is the matter with you, Conrad? Are you displeased with me?
BOLZ.
With you? You have been generous as ever; only too generous. And it
would all have been fine, if only this whole scene had been
impossible. That fellow Senden!
ADELAIDE.
We have seen the last of him! Conrad, I'm one of the party!
BOLZ.
Hallelujah! I hear countless angels blowing on their trumpets! I'll
stay with the _Union_!
ADELAIDE.
About that I am no longer the one to decide. For I have still a
confession to make to you. I, too, am not the real owner of the
newspaper.
BOLZ.
You are not? Now, by all the gods, I am at my wit's end. I'm beginning
not to care who this owner is. Be he man, will-of-the-wisp, or the
devil Beelzebub in person, I bid him defiance.
ADELAIDE.
He is a kind of a will-of-the-wisp, a little something of a devil, and
from top to toe a great rogue. For, Conrad, my friend, beloved of my
youth, it is you yourself.
[_Hands him the deed_.]
BOLZ (_stupefied for a moment, reads_).
"Ceded to Conrad Bolz"--correct! So that would be a sort of gift.
Can't be accepted, much too little!
[_Throws the paper aside_.]
Prudence be gone!
[_Falls on his knees before_ ADELAIDE.]
Here I
kneel, Adelaide! What I am saying I don't know in my joy, for the
whole room is dancing round with me.
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