"He is right there, gossip," said shoemaker Deichert to Johann Bank.
"Fellow-citizens, I purchased myself an express wagon and a horse, to send home my goods, and also to make a little profit."
"We common people don't care about your little profits!" interrupted Fritz Siebert, the carrier.
"But," Kurz went on, "what happened? They laid an attachment on my wagon, last year, at Teterow----"
"Because you had not paid the tax," again interrupted Fritz Siebert.
Kurz did not mind such little interruptions as these, for he had been turned out once, and he was a persevering character, so he went on: "Our Herr Burgomeister sent for me, and asked me what sort of a wagon I sent my goods home in. 'In my own wagon,' I said. 'So, per se?' said he. 'No,' I said, 'not per sea, Rahnstadt is not a seaport; per land-carriage.' Then he laughed, and said he had expressed himself in Latin. Fellow-citizens, What are we coming to, when the magistrates express themselves in Latin, and attachments are levied on horses and wagons? That is the way to poverty. How shall we merchants live on the small profits we get on coffee and sugar, tobacco and snuff?"
"Don't talk about your cursed snuff!" cried shoemaker Deichert, "it has given me a nose like that!" and he held up his fist before his face; but he did not have a chance to say more, for everybody laughed, as they saw his natural nose peeping out on both sides of his fist.
"Fellow-citizens!" said Kurz, again, "I know, very well, there must be poverty, but it should be of a reasonable kind; I mean, so that every one may be able to take care of himself, and not be a burden to other people. But is that possible, under the sad state of things in our city? Fellow-citizens! for some years, I have been striving against the unjust privileges which certain people have obtained, and in which they have been protected."
"Gossip," said Thiel, the joiner, to Jürendt, "you see, he is coming to the stadtbullen. There he must stop, baker Wredow is my brother-in-law."
He was right. "Fellow-citizens!" cried Kurz, "I mean the stadtbullen, these----"