on the track of your antecedents, so any day, with your mighty consumption of men, one of my colleagues may make the happy discovery. Then I may just wipe my mouth, and you spend in prison the most enjoyable years of your life. If you will kindly decide quickly. The train goes at 12.30. If we haven't struck a bargain before eleven, I whistle up the policeman. If we have, I pack you, just as you stand, into a carriage, [Pg 38] drive you to the station, and to-morrow escort you on board ship. CASTI-PIANI. [Pg 38] LULU. But is it possible you can be serious in all this? LULU. CASTI-PIANI. Don't you understand that I can act now only for your bodily rescue? CASTI-PIANI. LULU. I'll go with you to America or to China, but I can't let myself be sold of my own accord! That is worse than prison! LULU. CASTI-PIANI. (Drawing a letter from his pocket.) Just read this effusion! I'll read it to you. Here's the postmark “Cairo,” so you won't believe I work with forged documents. The girl is a Berliner, was married two years and to a man whom you would have envied her, a former comrade of mine. He travels now for the Hamburg Colonial Company.... CASTI-PIANI. LULU. (Merrily.) Then perhaps he visits his wife occasionally? LULU. visits CASTI-PIANI. That is not incredible. But hear this impulsive expression of her feelings. My white-slave traffic seems to me absolutely no more honorable than the very best judge would tax it with being, but a cry of joy like this lets me feel a certain moral satisfaction for a moment. I am proud to earn my money by scattering happiness with full hands. (Reads.) “Dear Mr. Meyer”—that's my name as a white-slave trader—“when you go to Berlin, please go right away to the conservatory on the Potsdamer Strasse and ask for Gusti von Rosenkron—the most beautiful woman that I've ever seen in nature—delightful hands and feet, naturally small
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