Nearer the stove. We must get in one more table.

WEILER (_chuckling to himself_).

Regular ale-house politicians those two, Stein and Ulrich. Every day
they have a row.

SOPHY.

What are you talking there about a row? They're only fooling.

[_Exit in a hurry; reenters immediately afterward_.]

WEILER (_going as far as the door, gesticulating behind her_).

Fooling? Don't you believe it! The one is hot-headed, the other
obstinate. Ever since there was talk of buying the estate, the clearing
of the forest has been the daily apple of discord. Rich people always
pretend to know something, even if they don't know the first thing. Now
Stein thinks that by cutting down every other row of trees in the forest
the first would have more light and room for growing. Maybe Godfrey has
hunted that up in some old book. But when he comes with that theory to
Ulrich he strikes the wrong man. Only day before yesterday I thought
they were going to eat each other up, so that nothing would remain of
either of them. Stein says: "The forest will be _cleared_." The
forester: "The forest will _not_ be cleared." Stein: "But it _shall_ be
cleared." The forester: "It _shall not_ be cleared." Stein jumps up,
buttons his coat, two buttons at a time, knocks down two chairs, and is
gone. Well, I thought, that is the end of the friendship! But Lord bless
my soul! That happened the night before last, and early yesterday
morning--it was scarcely dawn--who comes whistling from the castle and
knocks at the forester's window, as though nothing had happened? That's
Stein. And who has already been waiting for a quarter of an hour and
grunts forth from under his white moustache, "I'm coming?" That's
Ulrich. And now both of them, without asking each other's pardon, go
together out into the forest, as though there never had been a quarrel!
Nobody takes any notice of it any longer. At night they quarrel, in the
morning they go together into the forest, as though it could not be
otherwise. But does he treat his boy any differently? Robert? Does he?
Didn't he want to leave home half a dozen times? And afterward he is too
good. Queer business that!

[During the last words he has retreated step by step before the table
which ANDREW and WILLIAM are carrying in and placing against the table
which already stands on the left in the direction from the footlights to
the back of stage.]

SOPHY.

Put it here. That's it. And now chairs, boys. From the upper room.