"A few steps."
"You must be more exact."
"I can't say more exactly than that, for I paid no attention to the gentlemen till I was told to arrest them."
"Is it your opinion that Herr Patke could have heard distinctly what the gentlemen were saying to one another?"
"I dare say he might have understood if they spoke very loud, but I can't say for certain."
"Herr Patke, what have you to say?"
The former non-commissioned officer, who had donned his 1870 medal for the occasion, hereupon assumed a strictly military bearing, fixed his eye firmly on the magistrate, and began in a sing-song voice:
"I happened to be in the street last Sunday when the infamous wretch lifted his murderous hand against the sacred person of our august monarch. My heart bled; I was beside myself; I could have torn everybody and everything to pieces. As I walked along I noticed these two gentlemen, who looked to me suspicious from the first—"
"Why?" asked the magistrate.
"Well—the one with his black hair, and the other with his hooked nose—I said to myself, 'Those are Jews!'"