"Bailiff," said Friedrich, when they were some way from Pinnow and the Bullfinch, "you are a sort of man of law, and must needs know this--what is the punishment for stealing a sausage?"
"Well, Friedrich," replied the bailiff, "I don't know about sausages, but I know very well the punishment for stealing a flitch of bacon; for when the lame shoemaker took one of mine out of the smoke, the Herr Amtshauptmann gave him a fortnight in prison and a dozen on his jacket into the bargain."
"Well, that's not dangerous," said Friedrich; "and, if you reckon according to that, it would be precious little for one sausage."
"How do you make that out?"
"Well now, bailiff, tell me; when you kill seven pigs, how many flitches of bacon do you get?"
"Fourteen," said the bailiff.
"That's not true," said Friedrich; "you only get thirteen. One is taken for the sausages."
"Yes, you're right," said the bailiff.
"Well then, how many sausages does your wife make out of seven pigs? About thirty, doesn't she? Then one flitch makes thirty sausages; and so, for one sausage, there would be, at most, half a day and half a blow; and that I consider is a righteous and merciful punishment; you may at once give me the half-blow on my back, and the half-day I will spend next Sunday afternoon in your house, in the corner behind the stove. For, look here--I took the Bullfinch's sausage."
"What Devil tempted you to do that?"