STATUE. What--a reformer? [Stamps.] Hell! how cold your feet get
standing here; but what does one not do for glory's sake! A
reformer? Then he, too, is to have a statue?
PILLORY. A statue--well, hardly! No, he had to play statue himself,
at my feet, while I clasped him around the neck with both arms.
[Neck-irons clash.] You see, he was a real reformer, and not a
charlatan, such as you were in life!
STATUE. Oh, bosh! You should be put to shame!
PILLORY. I should--but I always have justice on my side. [Swings
switch.]
STATUE. What, then, was his specialty?
PILLORY. He was a reformer in street paving.
STATUE. In street paving? Pestilence and cowardice! He dabbles,
then, in my profession. [Bumps into female statue.]
PILLORY. No; he does intelligently what you dabbled in, and you
wouldn't be standing where you are had you not been the
burgomaster's father-in-law!
STATUE. Was not I the one who carried out the new idea of
stone-paved streets?
PILLORY. Yes, that you did; but the idea was not new. And what did
you do? In place of the soft sand in which one formerly placed
one's feet, one must now balance oneself on jagged and rolly
stones, which destroy both feet and shoes--save on the street which
leads from your house to the tavern, where you let lay a footbridge
of flat stones.
STATUE. And now this reformer--or charlatan--wants to undo what I
did?
PILLORY. He wants to tear up what you laid down and pave all the
streets with "burgomaster" stones, so that all may be equally
comfortable.
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