"She grudged him every mouthful--stale, mouldy bread, tendons instead of meat--and _she_ drank coffee with cream." "Keep to the subject," ordered the president. "She grudged him everything but her finger nails, and his black-and-blue body showed through the holes in his torn and fusty clothes. Winter time, in the hardest frost, he had to chop wood for her, barefoot, in the yard, and his hands were too young and too weak, the logs too thick, the hatchet too blunt. More than once he nearly dislocated his wrist; more than once his feet were nearly frost-bitten, but he kept silent, even to his father." "To that drunkard?" laughs the accuser, and Bontzye feels cold in every limb. "He never even complained to his father," finished up the advocate. "And always alone," he continued, "no playmates, no school, nor teaching of any kind--never a whole garment--never a free moment." "Facts, please!" reminded the president. "He kept silent even later, when his father seized him by the hair in a fit of drunkenness, and flung him out into the street on a snowy winter's night. He quietly picked himself up out of the snow and ran whither his feet carried him. "He kept silent all the way--however hungry he might be, he only begged with his eyes. "It was a wild, wet night in spring time, when he reached the great town; he fell like a drop into the ocean, and yet he passed that same night under arrest. He kept silent and never asked why, for what. He was let out, and looked about for the hardest work. And he kept silent. Harder than the work itself was the finding of it--and he kept silent. "Bathed in a cold sweat, crushed together under heavy loads, his empty stomach convulsed with hunger--he kept silent. "Bespattered with mud, spat at, driven with his load off the pavement and into the street among the cabs, carts, and tramways, looking death in the eyes every moment--he kept silent. "He never calculated how many pounds' burden go to a groschen, how many times he fell on an errand worth a dreier; how many times he nearly panted out his soul going after his pay; he never calculated the difference between other people's lot and his--he kept silent. "And he never insisted loudly on his pay; he stood in the door-way like a beggar, with a dog-like pleading in his eyes--Come again later! and he went like a shadow to come again later, and beg for his wage more humbly than before. "He kept silent even when they cheated him of part, or threw in a false coin. "He took everything in silence." "They mean me after all," thought Bontzye. * * * * *