"Where are the assistants? Where is the food—where is it?"
The boys began to murmur against the assistants.
"It is a dirty trick to take all our food from us, and our cherry-wine and our few 'groschens,' and to leave us here in the desert, cold and hungry. May the devil take them!"
"May a bad end come to the assistants!"
"May the cholera strike down all the assistants in the world!"
"May they be the sacrifices for our tiniest nails!"
"Hush. Let there be silence. Here come our foes, our enemies."
"Little squirrels with big sticks."
"The sea-cats—the sea-cats!"
"Hurrah for the sea-cats!"