"Well, then, where?"
"Out there, sir."
"Where?" answered the old Herr, and he put up his eye-glasses, and looked everywhere except where Fritz Sahlmann was.
"There, Herr Amtshauptmann, there, in the old apple-tree that stands at the corner of the kitchen wall."
"So he is! Well, this is a strange thing!--In the winter too! Now, if it had been autumn when the apples are on the tree, I could have understood it; but in the winter!"
"Oh! Weber," said his wife, "he is no doubt practising now."
"Hanchen Besserdich, you have good eyes, what is he doing there?" asked the old Herr fumbling with his eye-glass.
"Why, he has got a long pole, but what he means to do with it I don't see. He's pointing it towards the smoking-garret."
"Towards our smoking-garret! What can he want there, Neiting?"
"I don't know, Weber; but I should not be at all surprised if some more sausages were missing tomorrow."