ou spare me an ideal or two?

Rosmer. What do you say?

Brendel. One or two cast-off ideals? You will be doing a good deed. I
am cleaned out, my dear boy, absolutely and entirely.

Rebecca. Did you not succeed in giving your lecture?

Brendel. No, fair lady. What do you think?--just as I was standing
ready to pour out the contents of my horn in plenty, I made the painful
discovery that I was bankrupt.

Rebecca. But what of all your unwritten works, then?

Brendel. For five and twenty years I have been like a miser sitting on
his locked money-chest. And then to-day, when I opened it to take out
my treasure--there was nothing there! The mills of time had ground it
into dust. There was not a blessed thing left of the whole lot.

Rosmer. But are you certain of that?

Brendel. There is no room for doubt, my dear boy. The President has
convinced me of that.

Rosmer. The President?

Brendel. Oh, well--His Excellency, then. Ganz nach Belieben.

Rosmer. But whom do you mean?

Brendel. Peter Mortensgaard, of course.

Rosmer. What!

Brendel (mysteriously). Hush, hush, hush! Peter Mortensgaard is Lord
and Chieftain of the Future. I have never stood in a more august
presence. Peter Mortensgaard has the power of omnipotence in him. He
can do whatever he wants.

Rosmer. Oh, come--don't you believe that!

Brendel. It is true, my boy--because Peter Mortensgaard never wants to
do more than he can. Peter Mortensgaard is capable of living his life
without ideals. And that, believe me, is precisely the great secret of
success in life. It sums up all the wisdom of the world. Basta!

Rosmer (in a low voice). Now I see that you are going away from here
poorer than you came.

Brendel. Bien! Then take an example from your old tutor. Erase from
your mind everything that he imprinted there. Do not build your castle
upon the shifting sand. And look well ahead, and be sure of your
ground, before you build upon the charming creature who is sweetening
your life here.

Rebecca. Do you mean me?

Brendel. Yes, most attractive mermaid!

Rebecca. Why am I not fit to build upon?

Brendel (taking a step nearer to her). I understood that my former
pupil had a cause which it was his life's work to lead to victory.

Rebecca. And if he has--?

Brendel. He is certain of victory--but, be it distinctly understood, on
one unalterable condition.

Rebecca. What is that?

Brendel (taking her gently by the wrist). That the woman who lo