On the particular Sunday in question the midday meal was rendered more cheerful than otherwise by Bismarck and Von Molke, the two most youthful of Franz's half-brothers, who upset divers mugs of milk as well as pretty thoroughly smearing their small features with chicken gravy. Bismarck was finally ordered from the table by his father in very broken English because of some flagrant breach of good manners.
His exodus was shortly followed by that of his brothers and sisters who were in transit through that state of physical incompleteness, the sign of which is seen in the combining of long legs with diffidence.
These had eaten as though on a wager and one by one as they finished their meal slipped from their seats and took themselves off, the last mouthful in process of mastication.
Soon there remained only the old shoemaker, his wife, Franz, Philip and Von Molke—who still toiled manfully, albeit wearily, with a spoon tight-clutched in his chubby fist at whatever came within reach.
Bismarck had reappeared upon the scene. Into his small soul neither modesty nor diffidence had ever seeped even in microscopic quantities and he skirmished noiselessly about the room, always heedful of his father's guttural command to “go away”—promptly exiting at one door to appear as promptly at another with recriminations hoarse upon his lips against Von Molke, whose appetite, generaled with a nice knowledge of its capacity, bade fair to outlast the pudding.
With cold malignancy the latter's periodic cry of, “More, please,” would sound, and up would go his plate in spite of his brother's muffled entreaties that he should desist. In this manner Bismarck saw the last fragment of the pudding disposed of, which sight so maddened him that he forgot all caution and darted at Von Molke intent upon wresting the coveted prize from his possession.
In the moment of victory the strong arm of paternal law was interposed between the combatants and the assailant, hotly pursued by the assailed, was borne from the room in his father's arms to meet his punishment in the back yard.
“Come,” Franz said, rising. “Come, let us go to my room.”
And Philip followed him, hearing him mutter as he went: “Can he not wait when my friend is here?”
It was a large bare apartment they entered, carpetless and curtainless, with an iron bedstead at one side and a hideously ornate stove at the other.