where by now the carps are feeding on them." And he glanced round at his
fellows, as it were to read in their faces their praise of his quick wit.
Howbeit they were in overmuch dread to pay him that he looked for; nay,
and his bold spirit was quelled when Starch took him by the throat and
asked him: "Do you see that bough there, my lad? If another lie passes
your lips, I will load it with a longer and heavier pear than ever it
bore yet? Sebald, bring forth the ropes.--Now my beauty; answer me three
things: Did the messenger wear boots? How come you, who are one of the
least of the gang, to be wearing sound shoes? And again, Where are the
tops?"

Whereupon the little man craved, sadly whimpering, that he might be asked
one question at a time, inasmuch as he felt as it were a swarm of humble-
bees in his brain, and when Starch did his will he looked at the others
as though to say: "You did no justice to my ready wit," and then he told
that he had in truth drawn off the boots from the messenger's feet and
had been granted them to keep, by reason that they were too small for the
others, while he was graced with a small and dainty foot. And he cast a
glance at us ladies on whom he had long had an eye, a sort of fearful
leer, and went on: "The tops--they. . . ." and again he stuck fast.
Howbeit, as Starch once more pointed to the pear-tree, he confessed in
desperate terror that another man had claimed the tops, one who had not
been caught, inasmuch as they were so high and good. Hereupon Starch
laughed so loud and clapped his hand with such a smack as made us maidens
start, and he cried: "That's it, that is the way of it! Zounds, ye
knaves! Then the Sow--[Eber, his name, means a boar. This is a sort of
punning insult]--of Wichsenstein was himself your leader yesterday, and
it was only by devilish ill-hap that the knave was not with you when I
took you! You ragged ruffians would never have given over the tops in
this marsh and moorland, to any but a rightful master, and I know where