“You stupid fellow!” replied Bauer, pulling in an impressive manner at his thick moustache, “do you think the insolent dog of a Prussian will care anything for a civil letter? No, my boy, you don’t know him yet; au contraire, we ought to show him we’re not afraid.”
“Why, then! there will be war!” was timidly interjected by Conrads.
“Very well then! there will be war!” The rest nodded assent.
“But that will surely be a great-to-do,—couldn’t we wait at least till the crops are in?”
“We won’t wait a moment! I shall march with the Rifles to-morrow, right along the Prussian border, and then the miserable wretches can see that we’re not afraid of them!” and Bauer banged the table with his fists.
“That’s not nearly enough,” suggested Marbaise; “the custom-house officers might forget to write to the Emperor about it, and as long as he doesn’t know it, it all goes for nothing.”
“We ought to write to him ourselves, and not civilly,—no, indeed!—but as impudently as we can; and you must sign the letter, Bloemstein, just as if you were a king yourself, and put under it ‘Wullem the First, President of the Republic of Altenet.’”
“BAUER BANGED THE TABLE WITH HIS FISTS.”
“Wullem, Wullem! why, there are so many Wullems,” was the opinion of the man addressed; “the Dutch one is called so, and the Prussian too. ‘Wullem!’—it’s so common.”