"Suspicion!" said the old man, speaking with even greater vivacity, and taking shorter and quicker steps; "who talks of suspicion? The thing is as clear as amen in the church. If you have observed nothing--which really surprises me, but your word of course is sufficient--the reason is because the weather has been so bad. Still, the business is not altogether at a stand-still, as you have yourself just now seen. I declare, one feels very queer to think one is sitting in the very middle of it all. And last Thursday I had to take a lot of wine and cognac from him, and Trantow as much more a couple of days before, and Sylow still more, but he, I believe, divides with somebody else." "And why should not Herr von Zehren dispose of his surplus stock to his friends?" I asked, incredulously. "His surplus stock?" cried Herr von Granow. "Yes, to be sure there was a great deal left over from the last vintage; he has enough in his cellars, they say, to supply half the island. And that is a heavy load for him to carry; for he has to pay the smuggler captains in cash, and the market at Uselin has grown very poor, as I hear. Lately they have got very shy there. Since so many have taken to dabbling in the business, no one thoroughly trusts another. Formerly, I am told, the whole trade was in the hands of a pair of respectable firms. But all that you must know much better than I; your father is an officer of the customs." "True," I answered, "and I am so much the more surprised that, among so many, I have never heard Herr von Zehren's name mentioned--supposing your suspicion to be founded on fact." "But don't keep always talking about 'suspicion,'" cried the little man, peevishly. "It is there just as it is everywhere else, they hang the little thieves and let the big ones go. The gentlemen of the custom-house know what they are about. A couple of _thalers_ or _louis-d'ors_ at the right time will make many things smooth; and when one has, like the old man, a brother councillor of excise, Mr. Inspector will probably not be so impolite as to interfere with the councillor's brother." "That is an insult, Herr von Granow," I cried in a fury; "I have already told you that my own father is an officer in the customs." "Well, but then I thought that you and your father were not on the best terms," said Herr von Granow. "And if your father has driven you off, why----" "That concerns nobody!" I exclaimed, "unless it be Herr von Zehren, who has received me into his house, and been kind and friendly to me always. If my father has sent me away, or driven me off, as you call it, I gave him cause enough; but that has nothing to do with his integrity, and I will strike any man dead, like a dog, who asperses my father's honor."