"Have you found that out already?"
"Yes. Tell me how it happened."
"How it happened? The story is soon told. More than thirteen years ago Wenzel was my substitute in the army. My father knew him well. He was a boatman. You can ask Walderjörgli if he wasn't. Our families are the oldest in the country----"
"But what has that to do with Wenzel?"
"Oh yes! Well! My father gave both Wenzel and his mother a great deal of money and clothes, and now Wenzel still tries to bleed me."
"Did you not threaten to lay him out cold if he spoke to you before other people again?"
"Maybe I did, and maybe I didn't. A man sometimes says such a thing when he's angry; but I did not say it in earnest. Have I all at once become a man who is ready to kill any one that crosses his path? Am I an unknown adventurer?"
Landolin waited in vain for an answer, for the judge came back to the main point and asked:
"Were there any witnesses to the affair with Vetturi?"
"Yes, to be sure! My future son-in-law, Anton Armbruster, whom you know, and my daughter."