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"It takes two to connect the ventilating shaft with the main drainage."

Mopsa (sighing). Poor Spreta! and oh, poor dear Alfred! I really don't know if I can have the heart to leave him.

San. Eng. Bloch. (pasting up the bill). I shall not believe it myself until I actually see you do it. But why shouldn't you come along with me, if you are going—h'm?

Mopsa. If you were only a married man—but I have to be so careful now, you know!

San. Eng. Bloch. It tortures me to think of our two handbags each taking its own way; it really does, Miss Mopsa. And then for me to have to plumb all by myself. Though, to be sure, one can always get round the district surveyor alone.

Mopsa. Ah, yes, that you can surely manage alone.

San. Eng. Bloch. But it takes two to connect the ventilating shaft with the main drainage.

Mopsa (looking up at him). Always two? Never more? Never many?

San. Eng. Bloch. Well, then, you see, it becomes quite a different matter—it cuts down the profits. But are you sure you can never make up your mind to share my great new job with me?

Mopsa. I tried that once—with Alfred. It didn't quite answer—though it was delightful, all the same.

San. Eng. Bloch. Then there really has been a bright and happy time in your life? I should never have suspected it!

Mopsa. Oh yes, you can't think how amusing Alfred was in those days. When he distinguished himself by failing to pass his examinations, and then, from time to time, when he lost his post in some school or other, or when his big, bulky manuscripts were declined by some magazine—with thanks!

San. Eng. Bloch. Yes, I can quite see that such an existence must have had its moments of quiet merriment. (Shaking his head.) But I don't see what in the world possessed Alfred to go and marry as he did.

Mopsa (with suppressed emotion). The Law of Change. Our latest catchphrase, you know. Alfred is so subject to it. So will you be, some day or other!

San. Eng. Bloch. Never in all my life; whatever progress may be made in sanitation! (Insistently.) Can't you really care for me?

Mopsa. I might—(looking down)—if you have no objection to go halves with Alfred.

San. Eng. Bloch. I am behind the times, I daresay; but such an arrangement does not strike me as a firm basis for a really happy home. I should certainly object to it, most decidedly.

Mopsa (laughs bitterly). What creatures of convention you men are, after all! (Recollecting herself.) But I quite forgot. I am conventional myself now. You are perfectly right; it would be utterly irregular!

Alfred (comes up the steps). Is it you, Blochdrähn, that has posted up that bill? On the new summer-house!

San. Eng. Bloch. Yes, Mrs. Früyseck asked me to.

Alfred (touched). Then she does miss Little Mopsëman, after all! Are you going? Not without Mopsa?

San. Eng. Bloch. (shaking his head). I did invite her to accompany me; but she won't. So I must make my jobs alone.

Alfred. It's so horrible to be alone—or not to be alone, if it comes to that! (Oppressed—to himself.) My troll is at it again! I shall press her to stay—I know I shall—and it will end in the usual way!

Spreta (comes up the steps, plaintively). It is unkind of you all to leave me alone like this. When I'm so nervous in the dark, too!

Mopsa (tenderly). But I must leave you, Spreta, dear. By the next steamer. That is——Well, I really ought to!

Alfred (almost inaudibly, hitting himself on the chest). Down, you little beggar, down! No, it's no use; the troll will keep popping up! (Aloud) Can't we persuade you, dear Mopsa? Do stay—just to keep Spreta company, you know!

Mopsa (as if struggling with herself). Oh, I want to so much! I'd do anything to oblige dear Spreta!

San. Eng. Bloch. (to himself, dejectedly). She is just like that Miss Hilda Wangel for making herself so perfectly at home!

Spreta (resignedly). Oh, I don't mind. After all, I would rather Alfred philandered than fretted and fussed here alone with me. You had better stay, and be our Little Mopsëman. It will keep Alfred quiet—and that's something!

Mopsa. No; it was only a temporary lapse. I keep on forgetting that I am no longer an emotional Cuckoo heroine. I am perfectly respectable. And I will prove it by leaving with Mr. Blochdrähn at once—if he will be so obliging as to escort me?

San. Eng. Bloch. Delighted, my dear Miss Mopsa, at so unexpected a bit of good luck. We've only just time to catch the steamer.

Mopsa. Then, thanks so much for a quite too delightful visit, Spreta. So sorry to have to run away like this! (To Alfred, with subdued anguish.) I am running away—from you! I entreat you not to follow me—not just yet, at any rate!

Alfred (shrinking back). Ah! (To himself.) If it depends upon our two trolls whether——. (Mopsa goes off with Sanitary Engineer Blochdrähn.) There's the steamer, Spreta.... By Jove, they'll have a run for it! Look, she's putting in.

Spreta. I daren't. The steamer has one red and one green eye—just like Mopsëman's at mealtimes!

Alfred (common-sensibly). Only her lights, you know. She doesn't mean anything personal by it.

Spreta. But they're actually mooring her by the very pier that——How can they have the heart!

Alfred. Steamboat companies have no feelings. Though why you should feel it so, when you positively loathed the dog.

Spreta. After all, you weren't so particularly fond of him yourself; now were you, Alfred?

Alfred. H'm, he was a decent dog enough—for a mongrel. I didn't mind him; now you did.

Spreta (nods slowly). There is a change in me now. I am easier to please. I could share you with the mangiest mongrel, if I were only quite sure you would never again want to follow that minx Mopsa, Alfred!

Alfred. I never said I did want to; though I can't answer for the troll. But I must go away somewhere—I'm such a depressing companion for you. I shall go away up into the solitudes—which reminds me of an anecdote I never told either you or Mopsa before. Sit down and I will tell it you.

Spreta (timidly). Not the one about the night of terror you had on the mountains, Alfred, when you lost your way and couldn't find a policeman anywhere about the