Not one respect.
LEANDER
I assert that it displays wit.
JACKPUD
I assert that it displays none.
LEANDER
You are a fool; how can you pretend to judge concerning wit?
JACKPUD
And you are a scholar; what can you pretend to understand about wit?
LEANDER
Several characters are well-sustained.
JACKPUD
Not a single one.
LEANDER
Then, even if I concede else, the audience is well drawn in it.
JACKPUD
An audience never has a character.
LEANDER
I am almost amazed at this boldness.
JACKPUD (to the pit).
Isn't he a foolish fellow? Here we are, hand and glove with each other and sympathize in our views on taste, and he wishes to assert in opposition to my opinion, that at least the audience in Puss in Boots is well drawn.
FISCHER
The audience? Why no audience appears in the play.
JACKPUD
That's even better! So, then, no audience is presented in it at all?
MÜLLER
Why not a bit of it, unless he means the several kinds of fools that appear.
JACKPUD
Now, do you see, scholar! What these gentlemen down there are saying must certainly be true.
LEANDER
I am getting confused, but still I won't yield the victory to you.
[Enter HINZE.]
JACKPUD
Sir Hunter, a word! (HINZE approaches, they whisper.)
HINZE. If it's nothing more than that. (He takes off his boots, climbs up the pole, then takes the hat, jumps down, then puts his boots on again.)
JACKPUD
Victory! Victory!
KING
The deuce! How clever the hunter is!
LEANDER
I only regret that I have been vanquished by a fool, that learning must acknowledge foolishness as its superior.
KING
Keep still; you wanted the hat, he wanted the hat; so again I see no difference. But what have you brought, hunter?
HINZE
The Count of Carabas commends himself most respectfully to your majesty and sends you these two partridges.
KING
Too much! too much! I am sinking under the burden of gratitude! Long since should I have done my duty and visited him; today I will delay no longer. Have my royal carriage prepared at once—eight horses in front—I want to go driving with my daughter. You, Hunter, are to show us the way to the castle of the count.
[Exit with retinue.]
HINZE. JACKPUDDING
HINZE