"Oh, don't mind me," deprecated the little customs man, at the same time as furious as his host.
Karl had already began to blubber in anticipation of the whipping due. The captain laid his heavy cane on everywhere. The boy fell at his feet, bawling louder, less from fear than from the knowledge that his abjectness would please the captain's vanity and induce him to let up sooner.
"Now you come here!" Schantze beckoned me.
He raised the cane at me. But, to my own surprise, something brave and strange entered into me. I would not be humiliated before a countryman of my mother's, that was what it was!
I looked the captain straight in the eye.
"Sir, I did not do it, and I won't be whipped!"
"Wha-at!" ejaculated Schantze, astonished at my novel behaviour.
"I didn't touch the syrup." Karl looked at me, astonished and incredulous at my audacity, through his tear-stained face.
The captain stepped back from me.
I must be telling the truth to be behaving so differently.