Rather less than half an hour afterwards, two waggons drove out of the Treptow Gate of Brandenburg towards Stemhagen. In the first were the elders, the Herr Rathsherr and the baker and the Miller, and, as a mark of respect, the valet-de-chambre; in the second sat, on the foremost sack, Fritz Besserdich and Luth, and on the hind sack, Fieka and Heinrich. Friedrich lay behind in the straw. After they had gone along some way, my uncle Herse began to talk: "So we are out of his claws at last," said he. "Yes, Herr Rathsherr," answered the Baker, "and we have to thank the Herr Amtshauptmann and our Burmeister and, above all, the Miller's Friedrich for it." "That's according as you look at it, Witte," said my uncle. "For my part I have nothing to say against those three, and there is no doubt the Chasseur's being brought there did us good service, but it by no means set us free. Did you not notice how the French Colonel talked to me aside before the door of the Inn?" "Yes, Herr Rathsherr." "Well, then, let me tell you, that, if he had not employed me to take a secret message for him, we might have left Brandenburg by a very different gate from this." "The Devil we might!" cried the old Baker, and he looked at the Rathsherr out of the corner of his eye. My uncle said nothing; he only opened and shut his eyes importantly, and then turned away, and looked over the cornfields, as if he meant to let his words have due effect on the Baker. But this did not succeed. Old Baker Witte's head was like the pint measure in which he sold milk; when it was full to the brim, it would hold no more, and whatever more was poured in, ran over into the room. And, just now, his head was brimming full of all he had gone through, so that the Rathsherr's words made it run over, and he said nothing. "I wish I was in Stemhagen," said the Rathsherr, after a while. These drops went into the baker's pint measure, he said, therefore: "So do I, for it will be a precious long time before we get there." "I don't mean that," said the Herr Rathsherr. "I mean as to our reception." The baker's pint measure was running over again: "What?" he asked. "Our reception with a triumphal arch." The contents of the pint measure were now running over very fast:--"Reception! Triumphal arch! What? Is our Duke coming then?" "No, Witte, _he_ is not coming, but _we_ are coming." It was now just as if some one had given Witte's arm a jerk, while he was pouring the milk into the measure, so that half of it went on to the floor. This was lucky, for now there was room for the Herr Rathsherr's explanation.