"P-pay your d-debts fir-firsht, m-mister, before you t-ta-take down peo-people's namesh. You know!"
Spörri laughed still louder, lurched and staggered back like a crab and, shaking his head, piped shrilly,
"P-p-pay your d-debts, mister, that-tha-that is well s-said."
"Four of you get up," said the officer quietly, "and take these men to the guard-house, see that they're well locked up at once. In about three days we'll see if they have slept this off yet. Throw their cloaks over their shoulders and let them take their trousers on their arms. March!"
"T-t-t-trousers," shouted Ruckstuhl, "th-that's what we need; there's sh-sh-shtill s-something left to fa-fall out--if-you-shake-them."
"If you sh-sh-shake them, mister," repeated Spörri and both of them swung their trousers about till the coins jingled in the pockets. So they marched off with their escort, laughing and shouting, through the corridors and down the stairs and soon disappeared in a cellar-like room in the basement, whereupon it grew quiet.
The following day at noon. Master Frymann's table was more elaborately set than usual. Hermine filled the cut-glass decanters with the vintage of '46, put a shining glass at every place, laid a handsome napkin on every plate, and cut up a fresh loaf from the bakery at the sign of the Hen where they baked an old-fashioned kind of bread for high days and holidays, the delight of all the children in Zurich and of the women who sat gossiping over their afternoon coffee-cups. She also sent an apprentice, dressed in his Sunday best, to the pastry-cook's to fetch the macaroni pie and the coffee cake, and finally she arranged the dessert on a small side table: little curled cookies, and wafers, the pound cake, the little "cocked hats," and the conical raisin loaf. Frymann, pleasantly affected by the beautiful Sunday weather, interpreted his daughter's zeal to mean that she did not intend seriously to resist his plans, and he said to himself with amusement, "They're all like that! As soon as an acceptable and definite opportunity offers itself they make haste to seize it by the forelock!"
According to ancient custom Mr. Ruckstuhl was invited for twelve o'clock sharp. When, at a quarter past, he was not yet there, Frymann said,
"We will begin; we must accustom this cavalier to punctuality from the start."
And when the soup was finished and Ruckstuhl had still not arrived the master called in the apprentices and the maidservant who were eating by themselves that day and had already half done, and said to them: