lf. Mimmy shakes his
head, and bids him see now how his youthful laziness and frowardness
have found him out--how he would not learn the smith's craft from
Professor Mimmy, and therefore does not know how even to begin mending
the sword. Siegfried Bakoonin's retort is simple and crushing. He points
out that the net result of Mimmy's academic skill is that he can neither
make a decent sword himself nor even set one to rights when it is
damaged. Reckless of the remonstrances of the scandalized professor, he
seizes a file, and in a few moments utterly destroys the fragments of
the sword by rasping them into a heap of steel filings. Then he puts
the filings into a crucible; buries it in the coals; and sets to at the
bellows with the shouting exultation of the anarchist who destroys only
to clear the ground for creation. When the steel is melted he runs it
into a mould; and lo! a sword-blade in the rough. Mimmy, amazed at the
success of this violation of all the rules of his craft, hails Siegfried
as the mightiest of smiths, professing himself barely worthy to be his
cook and scullion; and forthwith proceeds to poison some soup for him so
that he may murder him safely when Fafnir is slain. Meanwhile Siegfried
forges and tempers and hammers and rivets, uproariously singing the
while as nonsensically as the Rhine maidens themselves. Finally he
assails the anvil on which Mimmy's swords have been shattered, and
cleaves it with a mighty stroke of the newly forged Nothung.

The Second Act

In the darkest hour before the dawn of that night, we find ourselves
before the cave of Fafnir, and there we find Alberic, who can find
nothing better to do with himself than to watch the haunt of the dragon,
and eat his heart out in vain longing for the gold and the ring. The
wretched Fafnir, once an honest giant, can only make himself terrible
enough to keep his gold by remaining a venomous reptile. Why he should
not become an honest giant again and clear out of his cavern, leaving
the gold and the ring and the rest of it for anyone fool enough to take
them at such a price, is the first question that would occur to anyone
except a civilized man, who would be too accustomed to that sort of
mania to be at all surprised at it.

To Alberic in the night comes the Wanderer, whom the dwarf, recognizing
his despoiler of old, abuses as a shameless thief, taunting him with the
helpless way in which all his boasted power is tied up with the laws and
b