ed to this man!

LEONARD.

Don't be a baby! And now one more word in confidence: Does your father
still keep the thousand thalers in the apothecary shop?

CLARA.

I know nothing about it.

LEONARD.

Nothing about so important a matter?

CLARA.

Here comes my father.

LEONARD.

Understand me! The apothecary is said to be on the verge of
bankruptcy--that's why I asked!

CLARA.

I must go into the kitchen! [_Exit_.]

LEONARD (_alone_).

Well, I guess there is nothing to be got here! I can't understand it at
all; for Master Antony is one of those fellows whose ghost, if you
should accidentally put one too many letters on his gravestone, would
haunt you until you took it off. For he would regard it as dishonest to
appropriate more of the alphabet than he was properly entitled to.

SCENE V

_Enter_ LEONARD; _Master_ ANTONY.

ANTONY.

Good morning, Mr. Cashier! [_He takes off his cap and puts on a woolen
cap_.] Is it permissible for an old man to keep his head covered?

LEONARD.

You know then--

ANTONY.

Since yesterday evening. When I was going over in the dusk to take the
deceased miller's measure for his final sleeping room, I heard a couple
of your good friends slandering you. I thought right away: I guess
Leonard has not broken his neck.--At the house I heard more about it
from the sexton, who had come to console the widow, and, incidentally,
to get drunk.

LEONARD.

And you had to let Clara find out about it from me?

ANTONY.

If you didn't care enough about it to give the girl that pleasure
yourself, why should I do it? I don't light any candles in my house
except those that belong to me. Then I know that nobody is going to come
and blow them out, just as we are beginning to enjoy them.

LEONARD.

Surely you don't think that I--

ANTONY.

Think? About you? About anybody? I smooth over boards with my plane, but
I never smooth over men with my thoughts. I stopped that sort of
foolishness long ago. When I see a tree growing, I think to myself: It
will soon be blossoming; and when it sprouts: It will soon bear fruit.
In that I never see myself disappointed, and for that reason I don't
give up the old habit. But about men I never think anything, good or
bad, and then I don't have to turn alternately red and white when they
disappoint my fears one minute and my hopes the next. I merely observe
them and use the evidence of my eyes, which likewise do not think, but
only see. I