"Bah, what does he matter?" blustered Adolph, "a child of sin like him!" And once again he called out sharply and scornfully, "Cain!" Suddenly he saw the others fall back from something, that passed before his eyes like a great black shadow. He had no time to see what it was; for some one seized him by the clothes over his chest and lifted him, heavy as he was, high in the air and shook him, so that his shirt and waistcoat and coat tore. Then the man let him down, took him by the collar, held him in one hand as if in a vise and hit him blow after blow, the big tall fellow, just as one punishes little children, such blows that his cries brought the people running, and two or three voices called out: "Let him go, Fausch! Do you want to kill him?" Some of the men caught the smith by the arm. Finally he let go of Adolph and shook off the hands of those who were interfering. His dark face looked gray. On his wrinkled forehead a swollen vein showed, as thick as a cord. "There," said he breathing heavily, "if any one else wants some of the same sort, he only needs to torment the boy." Having spoken thus, he thrust his hands into his pockets and walked away with his head thrust forward like that of an ox that is pulling. "It is all the same to me, half-grown or full-grown," he growled over his shoulder. Among those who were looking after him, and the others who were grouped around Adolph where he was writhing on the ground with pain and rage, there was not one who had any fancy for a taste of the smith's fists. After this day the Waltheimers had something more to complain of. "The smith doesn't want his boy to be jeered at. Then what did he give him such a name for?"