"You may go on."
"Your honor, that wine there is pure, for I brought it myself from the vat at Kaiserstuhl; but I think the wine at the Sword is not pure. When I drink during the day, and talk at the same time, it sets me beside myself; but the fright at the accident has brought me to my senses."
"So you were drunk at the time of the----of the accident."
Landolin started. "This is not a man who has come to gossip with me. It is a judge, and a judge over me. Stop! How can being drunk help?" These thoughts passed rapidly through his mind, and he replied, almost smiling:
"Thank heaven, I am never so drunk as not to know what I am doing. I can stand a good deal."
He bestowed a confidential smile on the judge, but when he saw the unchanging gravity of his countenance, he shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and went on determinedly:
"I can prove that the good-for-nothing fellow got no harm from me."
"Have you got that down?" said the judge to the clerk; and he replied: "Yes, I am taking it in short-hand."
The chair under Landolin's hand moved, for he was dismayed to find that his disconnected expressions were all written down. He now waited for questions to be put to him, and after a little while the judge began:
"Have you not had a violent quarrel, once before to-day, with one-handed Wenzel of Altenkirchen?"