"Oh, nothing, Herr Amtshauptmann. It's only a little mud."
"Heaven preserve us," cried the Frau Amtshauptmann; "what does the boy look like? Who is ever to get him clean again?"
"Hanchen and Corlin must go all over him with the kitchen brooms," said Mamsell Westphalen.
"Boy!" cried the Herr Amtshauptmann; "now tell me at once the pure truth. Has the Burmeister escaped or not?"
"Yes, Herr Amtshauptmann," said Fritz, and looked up again; "he's scuttled."
"That's a lie," burst out Mamsell Westphalen; "how can pure truth come from an unclean vessel?"
"Proceed, Fritz," said the old Herr. And Fritz proceeded.
It often happens in this world that in seeking to carry off an undue share of honour, people lose even that amount which they really deserve. This happened to Fritz. When he came to his own share in the story he made it so full of details, described the naturalness of his fall so minutely, and made so much of everything, in order to place his deeds in a conspicuous light, that he was still a long way from the end, when Luth came in with the Captain of the Fire-Brigade; and the Herr Amtshauptmann turned to the latter, and said in High German--"Tröpner, my man, what do you know of the matter." Tröpner felt, from this question being put in High German, that the Herr Amtshauptmann looked upon him as an educated man, and so he determined to behave like one, and replied in as good High German as he could muster, "I saw it from beginning to end." He now began the whole story over again, entirely left out Fritz Sahlmann's part and concluded with these words: "And thereupon the Herr Burmeister sprang from behind the Herr Rathsherr's cloak, dashed right round the eclipage, scrambled on all fours up the bank to the hollow willow-tree, snatched the bridle out of Fritz's hands by main force, swung himself into the saddle, and no sooner did he feel the brown mare under him, than off he went like a bolt straight towards the Pribbenow fir-wood."
"And the French?" asked the Amtshauptmann.
"Oh, Herr Amtshauptmann, they were half-frozen and, when they wanted to fire, their guns would not go off because of the wet, and so they threw themselves in their rage upon us, who were innocently looking on; and gave Bank the shoemaker who lives in the Brandenburg road, a touch of the butt-end of a musket between the shoulders, and then all of us made off and ran down the hill."