_Reiss._ Too much modesty.

_P. Coun._ Your self-denial. For you yourself had the justest claims to
all the honours, with which you permitted me to be invested.

_Reiss._ _Audaces fortuna._--I am too old. Now you should enjoy life,
my friend. The merchant will endeavour to get a hundred per cent. if he
can; why should the statesman sell his labour to the state at three?
Away with the silly prejudice, and the retail-trade of your
conscientious precepts; carry on your business wholesale, on the sacred
principle of self-preservation.

_P. Coun._ I partly do so, but my father--

_Reiss._ I have paid the old honest man a visit.

_P. Coun._ Very kind of you! very kind of you indeed!

_Reiss._ He persists in his determination of setting the will aside.

_P. Coun._ Ridiculous!

_Reiss._ He will not suffer the children to go to the hospital, because
the institution is intended for old and decayed people.

_P. Coun._ Mere formalities, attached to old age!

_Reiss._ As for the rest, he appeared pleased with your proposed union
with my daughter.

_P. Coun._ Was he!

_Reiss._ He said many handsome things of the girl.

_P. Coun._ Too much cannot be said in her praise. She is an angel.

_Reiss._ I humbly thank you.--But he will not accept the office of
mayor on any account.

_P. Coun._ I thought so;--but he must.

_Reiss._ Oh, yes! I must request you to carry that point, for--

_P. Coun._ Without doubt.

_Reiss._ For, however pleased I may be with your connection, I could
not possibly think of giving my daughter to a man whose father earned
his bread as a mechanic.

_P. Coun._ Leave me alone for that. His whole mode of life will be
changed. Nay, this change has in some measure taken place already.

_Reiss._ Bravo, bravo!

_P. Coun._ His mansion--

_Reiss._ Right, right!

_P. Coun._ His dress--

_Reiss._ Very necessary.

_P. Coun._ Those pitiful caps of my sister--

_Reiss._ Oh, nice! Oh! there you remove a heavy weight from my mind.
And then the chief object, that law-suit--

_P. Coun._ You cannot lose it. The will--?

_Reiss._ I will stick to that, as if rivetted to it with iron.

_P. Coun._ It speaks in your favour in all its forms.

_Reiss._ But he is so obstinate in pursuit of the cause, and will--

_P. Coun._ He cannot gain it.

_Reiss._ I think so. But then he has engaged that old foolish lawyer
Wellenberg, that--

_P. Coun._ A fool, and a pedant.

_Reiss._ True! But then he is su