The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann Volume I Part 98

WULKOW

Well, what do I get out of it all, I want to know! This here lighter business ain't a natural thing. An' poachin', that's a bad job. If you all get nabbed, I'd be the first one to fly in. I been worryin' along these forty years. What've I got to-day? The rheumatiz--that's what! When I get up o' mornin's early, I gotta whine like a puppy dog. Years an'

years I been wantin' to buy myself a fur-coat. That's what all doctors has advised me to do, because I'm that sensitive. But I ain't been able to buy me none. Not to this day. An' that's as true as I'm standin' here.

ADELAIDE

[_To her mother._] Did you hear what Leontine said?

WULKOW

But anyhow. Let it go. I'll say sixteen.

MRS. WOLFF

No, it's no good. Eighteen! [_To ADELAIDE._] What's that you was talkin'

about?

ADELAIDE

Mrs. Krueger has bought a fur-coat that cost pretty near a hundred crowns. It's a beaver coat.

WULKOW

A beaver coat?

MRS. WOLFF

_Who_ bought it?

ADELAIDE

Why, Mrs. Krueger, I tell you, as a Christmas present for Mr. Krueger.

WULKOW

Is that girl in service with the Kruegers?

ADELAIDE

Not me, but my sister, I ain't goin' in service like that at all.

WULKOW

Well now, if I could have somethin' like that! That's the kind o' thing I been tryin' to get hold of all this time. I'd gladly be givin' sixty crowns for it. All this money that goes to doctors and druggists, I'd much rather spend it for furs. I'd get some pleasure out of that at least.

MRS. WOLFF

All you gotta do is to go there, Wulkow. Maybe Kruger'll make you a present of the coat.

WULKOW

I don't suppose he'd do it kindly. But's I said: I'm interested in that sort o' thing.

MRS. WOLFF

I believes you. I wouldn't mind havin' a thing like that myself.

WULKOW

How do we stand now? Sixteen?

MRS. WOLFF

Nothin' less'n eighteen'll do. Not under eighteen--that's what Julius said. I wouldn't dare show up with sixteen. No, sir. When that man takes somethin' like that into his head! [_JULIUS comes in._] Well, Julius, you said eighteen shillin's, didn't you?

JULIUS

What's that I said?

MRS. WOLFF

Are you hard o' hearin' again for a change? You said yourself: not under eighteen. You told me not to sell the stag for less.

JULIUS

I said?... Oh, yes, that there piece o' venison! That's right. H-m. An'

that ain't a bit too much; either.

WULKOW

[_Taking' out money and counting it._] We'll make an end o' this.

Seventeen shillin's. Is it a bargain?

MRS. WOLFF

You're a great feller, you are! That's what I said exactly: he don't hardly have to come in the door but a person is taken in!

WULKOW

[_Has unrolled a sack which had been hidden about his person._] Now help me shoot it right in here. [_MRS. WOLFF helps him place the venison in the sack._] An' if by some chanst you should come to hear o' somethin'

like that--what I means is, just f'r instance--a--fur coat like that, f'r instance. Say, sixty or seventy crowns. I could raise that, an' I wouldn't mind investin' it.

MRS. WOLFF

I guess you ain't right in your head...! How should _we_ come by a coat like that?

A MAN'S VOICE