"Down with him!" cried Thiel, the joiner.
"Yes, down with him!" echoed through the hall.
"We will hear nothing of bulls and cattle!" cried several voices.
"He grudges everybody the least profit!" cried Fritz Siebert.
"He wants it all for himself, even the stadtbullen!"
The president struck his bell emphatically, Kurz drew himself up in the stand, and made one more attempt: "Fellow-citizens!"
"Eh, what, fellow-citizens?" cried Thiel the joiner and Deichert the shoemaker, and pulled the unlucky tradesman down backwards, by the skirts of his coat, out of the cooling-vat, so that he gradually disappeared, and only his two hands trembled for a moment on the rim of the cask, as if he were drowning, and smothered sounds arose, "Stadtbullen--bullen--bullen--bullen?" Then all was silent, and Kurz fell half fainting into Bräsig's arms. Bräsig and the carpenter carried him out.
"I wish you would hold your confounded tongue!" said Uncle Bräsig, as he dragged Kurz into the next room, and got him into a corner, "do you want to be turned out again?" and the two old fellows planted themselves to the right and left of Kurz, and stood there like the two men in the "Wild Man's gulden," who keep watch over a springing lion, lest he should attack the people; only the two old boys went more sensibly to work than the wild men, and each had a pipe in his hand, instead of a club.
Meanwhile, Fritz Siebert was showing that poverty came from the turnpike toll; the turnpike tolls must be given up; and tailor Wimmersdorf made a very reasonable proposition; something must be done for the poor, and he could think of nothing better at the moment, than to write down the grand-duke's castle, at Rahnstadt, as "national property;" if that could be sold, a good bit of poverty might be remedied, this was carried, and seven men went off to the castle, with Grammelin's stable lantern, and a piece of chalk, to attend to the business.
"Krischan," said a voice behind Pomuchelskopp, "I like that. You can write,--you shall write, to-morrow evening, on the door of our master's house."