The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts

Excerpt

ACT I.

A plain Tradesman's Room, with old fashioned Furniture.

Master Clarenbach. (Busied with a design.)

Clar. So!--there is my design, and I think it is a pretty good one. It will make a substantial building.--When I am gone, people will say, when they look at the pile, "Master Clarenbach was a man that knew what he was about."

SCENE II.

Enter Lewis.

Lew. Deputy Clarenbach presents his compliments to Master Clarenbach, and sends him something.

Clar. What?

Lew. Deputy Clarenbach presents his compliments, and sends something.

Clar. (takes off his spectacles.) So my son sends me his compliments? So! well,--return him a good morrow from me. What is it he sends?--money! (opens the paper;) for what? he has written nothing in it, a mere blank.

Lew. I do not know; I am to have a receipt for it.

Clar. Take the money back.

Lew. What the deuce!

Clar. (rises.) No deuce here! and--take off your hat when you stand in my presence, Monsieur Lewis.

Lew. (takes off his hat reluctantly.) I am--

Clar. The Deputy's footman, and I am the Deputy's father.

Lew. Aye, aye; Master Clarenbach, the--

Clar. The carpenter, citizen and master, trustee of the hospital, ad Sanctum Mauritium in this town, master in my own house and in my own room; here is the money. I am busy, good bye. (Sits down to his design.)

Lew. Very odd.

[Exit.

Clar. Odd? hem! aye, aye. Odd you are, both the master and the servant.

Enter Fredericka, (with a glass of wine, and a crust of bread on a plate.)

Fred. Father, the weather is very rough this morning.

Clar. Do you think so, my dear?

Fred. I cannot let you go out of the house so; you must take a glass of wine.

Clar. You are right, I think; (takes it.) Moreover, I shall be out a good while to day; (drinks;) perhaps I may not come home to dinner; (drinks;) bring my dinner then to the timber-yard.

Fred. With all my heart.

Clar. (looking at her.) I do not think you will do it with reluctance.

Fred. By no means. I will do it with pleasure. But my brother does not altogether relish it; and, in those little matters, I think we might please him.

Clar. (rises displeased.) I say, no! God bless him in the high station he fills! But that cannot be, if ever he should forget what he has been. And as his memory, in that respect, is daily impaired, it is necessary therefore to put him the oftener in mind of it.

Fred. Yet I think--

Clar. He is a Deputy,--let him thank God for it! I am a carpenter, thank heaven! You are my good dutiful daughter, that takes care of me, nurses me, and gives me great satisfaction; and for that, I return heaven threefold thanks from the bottom of my heart. (Fred. embraces him.) Yes, you are very good! I only find fault with two things; in every other respect you are a nice girl, quite the girl after my own heart. First, you read too much, and then--

Fred. Dear father, do not I tell you a number of entertaining and instructive things out of the books I read? Has my reading formed me otherwise than you would have me...?