“You don’t catch me. I haven’t forgotten how you blew in my eyes the other day!”
“Well, then, go to the devil by all meanths. There’s no wawing with such pawverse thtupidity. Just wait till I come out of thith. You won’t have thith plathe of pedell much longer, I’ll pwomithe you that!”
Inaddler felt his way downstairs in a very ill humour. This lad Rumpf was surely the most impertinent fellow he had ever come across. An ass did he call him? Thunder and lightning! Ever since the decease of Mrs. Inaddler the like had not occurred to him——!
These miserable schoolboys!
Meanwhile Samuel Heinzerling passed up and down his cell with long steps. His whole appearance bore a certain resemblance to an African lion condemned to imprisonment by human sagacity without losing thereby any of the original pride and strength of his noble nature. His hands crossed on his back, his head with its grey mane inclined wofully toward one shoulder, his lips tightly shut—so he walked back and forth, back and forth, the darkest and most misanthropic thoughts in his bosom.
Suddenly a broad smile flitted across his features.
“Most abthurd thith ith!” he muttered to himself. “Weally, though thith ith a very disagweeable affair for me to be in, there ith no denying the humour of the thituation——”
He stood still.
“Ith there weally any dithgwace in being outwitted by a thchoolboy? Go to, Thamuel! Did not a thelebrated king hold the ladder faw a thief to thteal his watch? Wath not even Pwince Bithmarck locked in by wuthless hands? Not to name a hundred other cases. And thtill hithtory treath thith king with rethpect. And thtill Bithmarck hath lotht none of hith reputation ath the betht diplomatitht in Europe. No, no, Thamuel! Your dignity ath thchool-mathter, ath thitizen, ath philothopher, need not thuffer by thith mortifying thituation. Retht assured, Thamuel——”
He continued his walk in a self-satisfied mood; but soon he interrupted himself anew.