"Yes, yes," cried the syndic, "we will storm the nest!"
"We will storm it!" exclaimed the town clerk, with a look intended to be brave.
"How wise! how heroic!" was the praise on every lip, while the Bürgermeister continued his interrupted address: "But we have already experienced the fact that the Arnstein is not easy to seize. By force nothing can be done."
"No, by force nothing can be done!" echoed the assembly as one man.
"We might attempt to take him by strategy," continued the orator; "but Arno is cunning as a fox, and we should probably only expose our town to more robbery if he discovered that we were trying to waylay him."
"Certainly! certainly!" agreed every mouth.
"Hence I give it as my opinion," concluded the Bürgermeister, "that as force and stratagem would only bring upon us expense and danger, and the result is uncertain, that—that—a—that we allow the matter to rest as it is, and leave the criminal to the punishment of Heaven. Do you not think so, gentlemen?"
"Certainly, your Worship, certainly! How wise! how mild! how forbearing!" shouted the assembly.
The Bürgermeister rose with official dignity, dismissed his colleagues with a wave of the hand, and the exhausted councillors were in the act of retiring, when the unhappy bridegroom rushed breathless into their midst.
"What is decided?" he cried hastily, and seized the syndic by the arm.