know, don't you, where you are?

LEUTNER.

Yes, but you certainly mustn't know that so quickly; why, the very
best part of the fun consists in getting at it little by little.

BARTHEL.

I think, brother Gottlieb, you will also be satisfied with this
division; unfortunately you are the youngest, and so you must grant us
some privileges.

GOTTLIEB.

Yes, to be sure.

SCHLOSS.

But why doesn't the court of awards interfere in the inheritance? What
improbabilities!

LORENZ.

So then we're going now, dear Gottlieb; farewell, don't let time hang
heavy on your hands.

GOTTLIEB.

Good-bye.

[_Exit the brothers_.]

GOTTLIEB (_alone_).

They are going away--and I am alone. We all three have our lodgings.
Lorenz, of course, can till the ground with his horse, Barthel can
slaughter and pickle his ox and live on it a while--but what am I,
poor unfortunate, to do with my cat? At the most, I can have a muff
for the winter made out of his fur, but I think he is even shedding it
now. There he lies asleep quite comfortably--poor Hinze! Soon we shall
have to part. I am sorry I brought him up, I know him as I know
myself--but he will have to believe me, I cannot help myself, I must
really sell him. He looks at me as though he understood. I could
almost begin to cry.

[_He walks up and down, lost in thought_.]

MUeLLER.

Well, you see now, don't, you, that it's going to be a touching
picture of family life? The peasant is poor and without money; now, in
the direst need, he will sell his faithful pet to some susceptible
young lady, and in the end that will be the foundation of his good
fortune. Probably it is an imitation of Kotzebue's _Parrot_; here the
bird is replaced by a cat and the play runs on of itself.

FISCHER.

Now that it's working out this way, I am satisfied too.

HINZE, the tom-cat (_rises, stretches, arches his back, yawns, then
speaks_).

My dear Gottlieb--I really sympathize with you.

GOTTLIEB (_astonished_).

What, puss, you are speaking?

THE CRITICS (_in the pit_).

The cat is talking? What does that mean, pray?

FISCHER.

It's impossible for me to get the proper illusion here.

MUeLLER.

Rather than let myself be disappointed like this I never want to see
another play all my life.

HINZE.

Why should I not be able to speak, Gottlieb?

GOTTLIEB.

I should not have suspected it; I never heard a cat speak in all my
life.