s; and mine...."

"And yours!" quoth Uhlwurm in scorn. "The rats have made shoes of
your boots and have eaten the tops, unless it was the mice? Look here,
Captain, if it please you...."

Starch did his bidding, and when he had made the lean knave put off his
left shoe he looked at it on all sides, stroked his beard the wrong way,
and said solemnly: "Well said, Master, this is matter for thought! All
this gives the case a fresh face." And he likewise cried to the rogue:
"Where are the tops?" The fellow had had time to collect himself, and
answered boldly: "I am but a poor weak worm, my lord Captain; they were
full heavy for me, so I cut them away and cast them into the pool,
where by now the carps are feeding on them." And he glanced round at
his fellows, as it were to read in their faces their praise of his quick
wit. Howbeit they were in overmuch dread to pay him that he looked for;
nay, and his bold spirit was quelled when Starch took him by the throat
and asked him: "Do you see that bough there, my lad? If another lie
passes your lips, I will load it with a longer and heavier pear than
ever it bore yet? Sebald, bring forth the ropes.--Now my beauty; answer
me three things: Did the messenger wear boots? How come you, who are one
of the least of the gang, to be wearing sound shoes? And again, Where
are the tops?"

Whereupon the little man craved, sadly whimpering, that he might be
asked one question at a time, inasmuch as he felt as it were a swarm of
humble-bees in his brain, and when Starch did his will he looked at the
others as though to say: "You did no justice to my ready wit," and then
he told that he had in truth drawn off the boots from the messenger's
feet and had been granted them to keep, by reason that they were too
small for the others, while he was graced with a small and dainty foot.
And he cast a glance at us ladies on whom he had long had an eye, a sort
of fearful leer, and went on: "The tops--they... " and again he
stuck fast. Howbeit, as Starch once more pointed to the pear-tree, he
confessed in desperate terror that another man had claimed the tops,
one who had not been caught, inasmuch as they were so high and good.
Hereupon Starch laughed so loud and clapped his hand with such a smack
as made us maidens start, and he cried: "That's it, that is the way of
it! Zounds, ye knaves! Then the Sow--[Eber, his name, means a boar. This
is a sort of punning insult]--of Wichsenstein was himself your leader