and LISA—all greatly agitated.
EXCITED CHORUS.
My goodness me! What shall we do? Why, what a dreadful
situation!
(To LUD.) It's all your fault, you booby you—you lump of
indiscrimination!
I'm sure I don't know where to go—it's put me into such a
tetter—
But this at all events I know—the sooner we are off, the
better!
ERN. What means this agitato? What d'ye seek?
As your Grand Duke elect I bid you speak!
SONG—LUDWIG.
Ten minutes since I met a chap
Who bowed an easy salutation—
Thinks I, "This gentleman, mayhap,
Belongs to our Association."
But, on the whole,
Uncertain yet,
A sausage-roll
I took and eat—
That chap replied (I don't embellish)
By eating three with obvious relish.
CHORUS (angrily). Why, gracious powers,
No chum of ours
Could eat three sausage-rolls with relish!
LUD. Quite reassured, I let him know
Our plot—each incident explaining;
That stranger chuckled much, as though
He thought me highly entertaining.
I told him all,
Both bad and good;
I bade him call—
He said he would:
I added much—the more I muckled,
The more that chuckling chummy chuckled!
ALL (angrily). A bat could see
He couldn't be
A chum of ours if he chuckled!
LUD. Well, as I bowed to his applause,
Down dropped he with hysteric bellow—
And that seemed right enough, because
I am a devilish funny fellow.
Then suddenly,
As still he squealed,
It flashed on me
That I'd revealed
Our plot, with all details effective,
To Grand Duke Rudolph's own detective!
ALL. What folly fell,
To go and tell
Our plot to any one's detective!
CHORUS.
(Attacking LUDWIG.) You booby dense—
You oaf immense,
With no pretence
To common sense!
A stupid muff
Who's made of stuff
Not worth a puff
Of candle-snuff!
Pack up at once and off we go, unless we're anxious to exhibit
Our fairy forms all in a row, strung up upon the Castle gibbet!
[Exeunt Chorus. Manent LUDWIG, LISA,
ERNEST, JULIA, and NOTARY.
JULIA. Well, a nice mess you've got us into! There's an
end of our precious plot! All up—pop—fizzle—bang—done for!
LUD. Yes, but—ha! ha!—fancy my choosing the Grand Duke's
private detective, of all men, to make a confidant of! When you
come to think of it, it's really devilish funny!
ERN. (angrily). When you come to think of it, it's
extremely injudicious to admit into a conspiracy every
pudding-headed baboon who presents himself!
LUD. Yes—I should never do that. If I were chairman of
this gang, I should hesitate to enrol any baboon who couldn't
produce satisfactory credentials from his last Zoological
Gardens.
LISA. Ludwig is far from being a baboon. Poor boy, he
could not help giving us away—it's his trusting nature—he was
deceived.
JULIA (furiously). His trusting nature! (To LUDWIG.) Oh,
I should like to talk to you in my own language for five
minutes—only five minutes! I know some good, strong, energetic
English remarks that would shrivel your trusting nature into
raisins—only you wouldn't understand them!
LUD. Here we perceive one of the disadvantages of a
neglected education!
ERN. (to JULIA). And I suppose you'll never be my Grand
Duchess now!
JULIA. Grand Duchess? My good friend, if you don't
produce
the piece how can I play the part?
ERN. True. (To LUDWIG.) You see what you've done.
LUD. But, my dear sir, you don't seem to understand that
the man ate three sausage-rolls. Keep that fact steadily before
you. Three large sausage-rolls.
JULIA. Bah!—Lots of people eat sausage-rolls who are not
conspirators.
LUD. Then they shouldn't. It's bad form. It's not the
game. When one of the Human Family proposes to eat a
sausage-roll, it is his duty to ask himself, "Am I a
conspirator?" And if, on examination, he finds that he is not a
conspirator, he is bound in honour to select some other form of
refreshment.
LISA. Of course he is. One should always play the game.
(To NOTARY, who has been smiling placidly through this.) What
are you grinning at, you greedy old man?
NOT. Nothing—don't mind me. It is always amusing to the
legal mind to see a parcel of laymen bothering themselves about a
matter which to a trained lawyer presents no difficulty whatever.
ALL. No difficulty!
NOT. None whatever! The way out of it is quite simple.
ALL. Simple?
NOT. Certainly! Now attend. In the first place, you two
men fight a Statutory Duel.
ERN. A Statutory Duel?
JULIA. A Stat-tat-tatutory Duel! Ach! what a crack-jaw
language this German is!
LUD. Never heard of such a thing.
NOT. It is true that the practice has fallen into abeyance
through disuse. But all the laws of Pfennig Halbpfennig run for
a hundred