book on the table.] This will never do for the Messenger.
Hovstad.
Why not?
Petra.
Because it flies in the face of all your convictions.
Hovstad.
Well, for that matter
Petra.
You don't understand me. It makes out that a supernatural power looks after the so-called good people in this world, and turns everything to their advantage at last; while all the so-called bad people are punished.
Hovstad.
Yes, but that's all right. That's the very thing the public like.
Petra.
And would you supply the public with such stuff? You don't believe a word of it yourself. You know well enough that things do not really happen like that.
Hovstad.
Of course not; but an editor can't always do as he likes. He has often to humour people's fancies in minor matters. After all, politics is the chief thing in life—at any rate for a newspaper; and if I want the people to follow me along the path of emancipation and progress, I mustn't scare them away. If they find a moral story like this down
