‘You are quite sure you are telling the truth, Wastei?’
‘I always do, now that I have a gun license,’ he answered. ‘You see, the truth is best for people who have anything to lose.’ ‘Fie, Wastei!’ exclaimed Berbel, half inclined to smile at his odd philosophy, but unwilling to let him see that she could appreciate a jest upon so moral a subject.
‘It is true, Frau Berbel. Not that I ever lied much, either, though I have told some smart tales to the foresters in the old days, when I was a free-shot in the forest, and they were always trying to catch me with a hare in my pocket—and to you too, Frau Berbel, when I used to make you think the game was all right. What did it matter, so long as you had it to eat, you and—well, those were queer times. I suppose you have game whenever you like, now, do you not?’
‘Ay, Wastei—I sometimes could not find any lead in your hares—’
‘That made them lighter to carry and more wholesome to eat,’ observed the other with a chuckle.
‘And I had my doubts about them, of course—’
‘But you did not ask many questions—not very many—did you?’
‘Not always, Wastei,’ answered Berbel with a twitch of the lips. ‘You see I thought it best to believe you, and to treat you like an honest fellow. There were reasons—’
‘Better than doubts, especially when the hare was dead and lying on your kitchen table. Well, well, those times are gone now, and if I ever shot a hare or a roebuck without lead, or pulled the trout out of the stream without making a hole in his nose, why I have forgotten it, and I will not do it again, I promise you. I am growing old, Frau Berbel, I am growing old.’
‘And wise, I hope—’