LISA. Ludwig is far from being a baboon. Poor boy, he
could not help giving us away--it's his trusting nature--he was
deceived.
JULIA (furiously). His trusting nature! (To LUDWIG.) Oh,
I should like to talk to you in my own language for five
minutes--only five minutes! I know some good, strong, energetic
English remarks that would shrivel your trusting nature into
raisins--only you wouldn't understand them!
LUD. Here we perceive one of the disadvantages of a
neglected education!
ERN. (to JULIA). And I suppose you'll never be my Grand
Duchess now!
JULIA. Grand Duchess? My good friend, if you don't
produce
the piece how can I play the part?
ERN. True. (To LUDWIG.) You see what you've done.
LUD. But, my dear sir, you don't seem to understand that
the man ate three sausage-rolls. Keep that fact steadily before
you. Three large sausage-rolls.
JULIA. Bah!--Lots of people eat sausage-rolls who are not
conspirators.
LUD. Then they shouldn't. It's bad form. It's not the
game. When one of the Human Family proposes to eat a
sausage-roll, it is his duty to ask himself, "Am I a
conspirator?" And if, on examination, he finds that he is not a
conspirator, he is bound in honour to select some other form of
refreshment.
LISA. Of course he is. One should always play the game.
(To NOTARY, who has been smiling placidly through this.) What
are you grinning at, you greedy old man?
NOT. Nothing--don't mind me. It is always amusing to the
legal mind to see a parcel of laymen bothering themselves about a
matter which to a trained lawyer presents no difficulty whatever.
ALL. No difficulty!
NOT. None whatever! The way out of it is quite simple.
ALL. Simple?
NOT. Certainly! Now attend. In the first place, you two
men fight a Statutory Duel.
ERN. A Statutory Duel?
JULIA. A Stat-tat-tatutory Duel! Ach! what a crack-jaw
language this German is!
LUD. Never heard of such a thing.
NOT. It is true that the practice has fallen into abeyance
through disuse. But all the laws of Pfennig Halbpfennig run for
a hundred years, when they die a natural death, unless, in the
meantime, they have been revived for another century. The Act
that institutes the Statutory Duel was passed a hundred years
ago, and as it has