sen. Perhaps so! Not more shrewdness, however. These gentry are
the most apt to deceive themselves. He should be more chary of his
confidence.

Jetter. How his tongue wags! Such a gentleman!

Vansen. Just because he is not a tailor.

Jetter. You audacious scoundrel!

Vansen. I only wish he had your courage in his limbs for an hour to make
him uneasy, and plague and torment him, till he were compelled to leave
the town.

Jetter. What nonsense you talk; why he's as safe as a star in heaven.

Vansen. Have you ever seen one snuff itself out? Off it went!

Carpenter. Who would dare to meddle with him?

Vansen. Will you interfere to prevent it? Will you stir up an
insurrection if he is arrested?

Jetter. Ah!

Vansen. Will you risk your ribs for his sake?

Soest. Eh!

Vansen (mimicking them). Eh! Oh! Ah! Run through the alphabet in your
wonderment. So it is, and so it will remain. Heaven help him!

Jetter. Confound your impudence. Can such a noble, upright man have
anything to fear?

Vansen. In this world the rogue has everywhere the advantage. At the
bar, he makes a fool of the judge; on the bench, he takes pleasure in
convicting the accused. I have had to copy out a protocol, where the
commissary was handsomely rewarded by the court, both with praise and
money, because through his cross-examination, an honest devil, against
whom they had a grudge, was made out to be a rogue.

Carpenter. Why, that again is a downright lie. What can they want to get
out of a man if he is innocent?

Vansen. Oh, you blockhead! When nothing can be worked out of a man by
cross-examination, they work it into him. Honesty is rash and withal
somewhat presumptuous; at first they question quietly enough, and the
prisoner, proud of his innocence, as they call it, comes out with
much that a sensible man would keep back! then, from these answers the
inquisitor proceeds to put new questions, and is on the watch for the
slightest contradiction; there he fastens his line; and, let the poor
devil lose his self-possession, say too much here, or too little there,
or, Heaven knows from what whim or other, let him withhold some trifling
circumstance, or at any moment give way to fear--then we're on the
right track, and, I assure you, no beggar-woman seeks for rags among the
rubbish with more care than such a fabricator of rogues, from trifling,
crooked, disjointed, misplaced, misprinted, and concealed facts and
information, acknowledged or de