'You'd better be careful,' he said, when he departed, 'for they will either rob you or suspect you.' 'By God's grace no one has ever robbed me, and it will never happen.' The sergeant went to Josel, who received him enthusiastically. He invited him into the parlour and assured him that all his licences were in order. 'There is no signboard at the gate.' 'I'll put one up at once of whatever kind you like,' said the innkeeper obsequiously, and ordered a bottle of porter. The sergeant now opened the question of the night-attack. 'What night-attack?' jeered Josel. 'The Germans shot at one another and then got frightened and made out that there was a gang of robbers about. Such things don't happen here.' The sergeant wiped his moustache. 'All the same Sukiennik and Rogacz have been after the horses.' Josel made a wry face. 'How could they, when they were in my house that night.' 'In your house?' 'To be sure,' Josel answered carelessly. 'Gryb and Orzchewski both saw them...dead drunk they were. What are they to do? they can't get regular work, and what a man perchance earns in a day he likes to drink away at night.' 'They might have got out.' 'They might, but the stable was locked and the key with the foreman.' The conversation passed on to other topics. 'Look after Sukiennik and Rogacz,' the sergeant said, on his departure, when he and his mare had been sufficiently rested. 'Am I their father, or are they in my service?' 'They might rob you.' 'Oh! I'll see to that all right!' The sergeant returned home, half asleep, half awake. Sukiennik and Rogacz kept passing before his vision; they had their hands full of locks and were surrounded by horses. Josel's smiling face was hovering over them and now and then old Gryb and his son Jasiek jeered from behind a cloud. He sat up...startled. But there was nothing near him except the white hen under the box and the trees by the wayside. He spat. 'Bah...dreams!' he muttered. The peasants were relieved when day after day passed and there was no sign of building in the camp. They jumped to the conclusion that either the Germans had not been able to come to terms with Hirschgold, or had quarrelled with the Hamers, or that they had lost heart because of the horse-thieves. 'Why, they haven't so much as measured out the ground!' cried Orzchewski, and washed down the remark with a huge glass of beer. He had, however, not yet wiped his mouth when a cart pulled up at the inn and the surveyor alighted. They knew him directly by his moustaches, which were trimmed to the resemblance of eels, and by his sloeberry-coloured nose. While Gryb and Orzchewski sorrowfully conducted each other home, they comforted themselves with the thought that the surveyor might only be spending the night in the village on his way elsewhere. 'God grant it, I want to see that young scamp of a Jasiek settled and married, and if I let him out of my sight he goes to the dogs directly.'