Friedrich stood at the door, upright as a grenadier, and not moving or stirring a limb except to drink; Fritz Besserdich stood at his side, not moving or stirring either, except, too, when he drank. And Fieka Voss sat next to my Mother, and my Mother pressed her hand, and stroked her soft cheek, and when I came up to her side, she stroked mine too and said: "Shall you love me as much as Fieka loves her father?" The Herr Amtshauptmann called Heinrich Voss into a corner, and talked to him aside. What had the Herr Amtshauptmann got to say in secret to Heinrich Voss, and why did he keep patting him on the shoulder? Old Miller Voss asked himself this, and when he had made out that it must be about the lawsuit, he said to Witte:-- "Well, I have finished with the lawsuit now, the Jew's the only thing remaining, and I'll drown him to-night in punch." "By the way that reminds me ..." said the baker going out. After a time he came back again, holding a basket in one hand and Strüwingken by the other:--"By your leave, Herr Burmeister, perhaps I may bring something towards the feast; here are a few sweet cakes; and here, Frau Burmeister, is my daughter Strüwingken; pardon the liberty, but she wished so much to see the company." But what was all this to the splendour and pomp which surrounded my uncle Herse. He had taken off his cloak, and now stood there in full uniform; and everyone came round him, and thanked him; my father because he had taken him under the shelter of his cloak; My mother because he had thereby helped my father to escape; Mamsell Westphalen curtseyed three times, and said she should never forget what he had done for her; and Miller Voss said that, strictly speaking, they had only been set free at Brandenburg owing to the Herr Rathsherr; and when old Witte confirmed this, Strüwingken secretly promised herself that she would send the Rathsherr an immense tea-cake. His fine, full face beamed with pleasure and delight, and he bent down to my Mother and said:--"I can't at all make out why 'Aunt' does not come." At the Miller's words, he suddenly recollected the French Colonel's message and turned to the Herr Amtshauptmann:--"I have two words to say to you, Herr Amtshauptmann, on a very secret matter," and so saying he drew him into a corner. We know what it is he is going to say, but if the corner could speak, and were to tell us what the Rathsherr had said there, we should be obliged to pretend that we had known nothing about it.