"It is a difficult situation," returned Fritz, wiping his brow. "The people have no love for the religious houses; but these nuns are women, and toward women even the revolutionist is chivalrous."
"So I see," rejoined the other dryly, glancing up at the windows of the building, many of which had been shattered by missiles. Fortunately for the inmates, the cells were protected by inner shutters, which were all securely closed.
The rioters now began to pelt the hussars, whose horses were becoming more and more restless. As Fritz opened his mouth to continue his speech, the man with the iron bar began to harangue also, and the people could understand neither of them.
At that moment there appeared from the opposite direction an odd-looking, long-legged student, with three enormous ostrich plumes waving in his hat and a prominent red nose dominating his thin, smooth-shaven face. A tricoloured sash crossed his breast, while a slender parade-sword, girt high up under his arm to prevent his stumbling over it, hung at his side. With a quick step and a light spring, the young man was presently at the side of Richard and Fritz.
"God keep you, comrades!" he cried in greeting. "Calm your fears, for here I am,—Hugo Mausmann, first lieutenant in the second legion. You are hard pressed just now, I can well believe. Friend Fritz is a famous orator, but only in the tragic vein. Tragedy is his forte. But a public speaker must know his audience. Here a Hans Sachs is called for rather than a Schiller. Only make your hearers laugh, and you have carried your point. Just let me give these folks a few of my rhymes, and you shall see them open their eyes, and then their mouths, and all burst out laughing; after that you can do what you will with them."
"All right, comrade," returned Richard; "go ahead and make them laugh, or I shall have to try my hand at making them cry."
Hugo Mausmann stepped forward and made a comical gesture, indicating his desire to be heard. Deliberately drawing out his snuff-box, he tapped it with his finger, and proceeded to take a pinch, an action which struck the spectators as so novel, under the circumstances, that they became silent to a man and thus permitted the speaker to begin his inexhaustible flow of doggerel. With frequent use of such rhyming catchwords as, "in freedom's cause I beg you pause;" "your country's fame, your own good name;" "our banner bright, our heart's delight;" "we're brothers all, to stand or fall,"—he poured out his jingling verse, concluding in a highly dramatic manner by embracing the hussar officer at his side, in sign of the good-fellowship which he described as uniting all classes in the brotherhood of freedom.
"Comrade, you haven't made them laugh yet," said Richard.
Hugo continued his rhymed address, but the people would listen no longer. "Down with the friend of the priests!" sounded from all sides. "Into the fire with the nuns!" And the shower of missiles came thick and fast. An egg hit the speaker on the nose, and filled his mouth and eyes with its contents.
"Give us a rhyme for that, brother!" shouted the successful marksman, and all laughed now in good earnest; but it was the brutal laugh of malice and ridicule at another's discomfiture.