by passive
resistance, by submission, with secret and silent hatred in their
hearts. Use no other weapons than this passive resistance, and
posterity will praise you, and say of you, with admiration, that
you were no heroes of fight, but heroes of passive resistance. Your
country will be proud of you!"

Mr. Krause paused, and leaned, worn out, on the shoulder of the
prophetic linen-weaver.

"You may be in the right," said the tailor, still rebellious at heart;
"all that sounds right and reasonable, but still it don't suit me,
and I don't see how the country can be proud of us, if we behave like
cowards, and let ourselves be bamboozled this way."

"Do you hush, tailor!" cried the hunchbacked shoemaker. "The chap
thinks because he can manage a sharp needle, he must be able to yield
a broadsword; but let me tell you, my brave boy, that a stick with a
sword hurts worse than a prick with a needle. It is not only written,
'Shoemaker, stick to your last,' but also, 'Tailor, stick to your
needle.' Are we soldiers, that we must fight? No, we are respectable
citizens, tailors and shoemakers, and the whole concern is no business
of ours. And who is going to pay us for our legs and arms when they
have been cut off?"

"Nobody, nobody is going to do it!" cried a voice from the crowd.

"And who is going to take care of our wives and children when we are
crippled, and can't earn bread for them? Perhaps they are going to
put us in the new almshouse, which has just been built outside of the
King's Gate, and which they call the Oxen-head."

"No, no, we won't go into the Oxen-head!" screamed the people. "We
won't fight! let us go home."

"Yes, go home, go home!" cried Krause and Kretschmer, delighted, and
Pfannenstiel repeated after them--

"Let us go home!"

And indeed the groups began to separate and thin out; and the two
editors, who had descended from their bench, mixed with the crowd, and
enforced their peaceful arguments with zealous eloquence.

But it seemed as if Fortune did not favor them, for now down the
neighboring street came Gotzkowsky with his band of armed workmen. He
drew them up in front of the town-hall. The sight of this bold
company of daring men, with determined countenances and flashing
eyes, exercised a magical influence on the people; and when Gotzkowsky
addressed them, and with overpowering eloquence and burning words
implored them to resist, when with noble enthusiasm he summoned them
to do their du