Kretschmann - Crown Prince Helmut. Waiting in the wings.

Guillaume - Arid waiting there for ever. He's only five years younger than Willy. Unless Willy gets run over by a tram he'll be too old to inherit. That's his tragedy. That's what makes him so edgy. That and his thyroid. He can't eat. He's living on ice-cream and Coca-cola.

Kretschmann - Ice-cream, Coca-cola, and the hope of a runaway tram.

Schmidt Willy always seems to be closeted with Horst Ehmke these days.

Wehner Herr Ehmke has a talent that some of the rest of us lack: he appreciates the great man's jokes.

Schmidt Most of them are about you, of course. You've heard the one about you and the Virgin Mary?

Wehner Yes. Thank you.

Schmidt Meanwhile I have to sit there in Cabinet each week and watch Willy let everything we fought for slip through his fingers. He won't exercise any control! Won't or can't. He claims to be interested in defence, but he won't give me any support in preserving the department's budget! He sits there saying nothing while Karl Schiller lectures us by the hour on economics. It's like being back in college. All those long silences of Willy's! All those compromises, all that indecision. Anything to avoid confrontation or conflict. (With Brandt.) So, Willy, yes or no? This draft or that draft? My proposal or Karl Schiller's proposal?

Brandt Let's talk about it. See if we can't find a solution that keeps everyone happy.

Schmidt You can't keep everyone happy, Willy! Not if you're running a government! We've got to come to a decision!

Brandt Thank you, Helmut. What do the rest of us feel . . . ?

Wehner (with Schmidt) The great peacemaker.

Schmidt And I honour him for it, like the rest of the world. If only he wouldn't do it in private as well. I'm not the most patient of men, I accept that. But to sit there in Cabinet and know that I have the answer to a problem - and then to watch Willy piddle it away - it's more than flesh and blood can bear!

Wehner And then suddenly, out of nowhere, some great gesture. Rushes us all into a new coalition without a word to any of us. All very fine, this wonderful spontaneity of his. But spontaneity's like democracy - it needs to be kept firmly under control . . . Can we help you, Herr Guillaume?

Guillaume Sorry. Just looking for something. Don't mind me.

Schmidt No, hand in the fire for him, it goes without saying. Hand in the fire.

Kretschmann - The old Communist and the old Wehrmacht officer. Both yearning for long-forgotten discipline.

Guillaume - Funny sort of discipline they practise, though. All they do is niggle away behind Willy's back.

Wehner (with Ehmke and Guillaume) The great man at home again last night, I gather, to all his fashionable friends. Camelot-on-the-Rhine, by all accounts.

Ehmke You should have been there.