I unbuttoned my sailor jacket to convince my questioner of the truth of my statement. The justizrath evidently breathed more freely.
"And you have come----?"
"To surrender myself to justice."
"Why did you not tell me so at once?"
"I do not think you gave me time."
The justizrath cast a confused glance at his broken pipe on the floor, cleared his throat, and seemed not to know exactly what was to be done in such an extraordinary case. There was a pause of silence.
The ladies must have inferred from this pause that I was engaged in cutting the throat of the husband and father; at least at this moment the door was flung open, and the Frau Justizrath, in night-gown and night-cap, came rushing in and fell upon the neck of her spouse in the flowered dressing-gown, whom she embraced with every mark of mortal fear, while Emilie, who had followed close behind her, turned to me, and with a tragic gesture of supplication, raised both her hands as high as her curl-papers.
"Heckepfennig, he will murder you!" sobbed the nightgown.
"Spare, oh spare my aged father!" moaned the curl-papers.
And now the door leading into the passage opened. Jette and the cook were curious to see what was going on, though at the peril of perishing in the general massacre, and appeared upon the threshold wailing aloud. This mark of courageous devotion so touched the night-gown that it burst into a flood of hysterical tears, and the curl-papers tottered to the sofa with the apparent intention of swooning upon it.