the table:

"Now, if it please God, we will receive our legitimate dues and the
good-will accompanying them."

The maids, who had already cleared off the table, then went out. The
Sexton sat down on a chair in the middle of the room, while the two
women, his wife and the maid, took seats on either side of him, putting
the newly-opened baskets down in front of them. After the expectation
which the faces of the three expressed had lasted for several minutes,
the two maids re-entered, accompanied by their master, the Justice. The
first was holding aloft a roomy basket of wickerwork, in which some hens
were anxiously clucking and flapping their wings. She put it down in
front of the Sexton, who glanced into it and counted:

"One, two, three, four, five, six--it is all right."

Thereupon the second maid counted out from a large piece of cloth into a
basket in front of the Pastor's maid, three score eggs and six round
cheeses, not without the Sexton's carefully counting them all over after
her. After this was done, the Sexton said:

"So then the Pastor is provided for, and now comes the Sexton."

Thereupon thirteen eggs and a single cheese were put into the basket in
front of his wife, who tested the freshness of each egg by shaking and
smelling it, and rejected two. After this proceeding the Sexton stood up
and said to the Justice:

"How is it, Justice, about the second cheese which the Sexton still has
the right to expect from the farm?"

"You yourself know, Sexton, that the right to the second cheese has
never been recognized by the Oberhof," replied the Justice. "This
alleged second cheese was due from the Baumann estate, which more than a
hundred years ago was united under one hand with the Oberhof. Later on,
the two were again divided, and the Oberhof is obligated for only one
cheese."

The Sexton's ruddy brown face took on the deepest wrinkles that it was
capable of producing, and divided itself into several pensive sections
of a square, roundish or angular shape. He said:

"Where is the Baumann estate? It was split up and went to pieces in the
times of disturbance. Is the Sexton's office to be the loser on that
account? It should not be so! Nevertheless, expressly reserving each and
every right in the matter of the second cheese due from the Oberhof, and
contested now for a hundred years, I hereby receive and accept one
cheese. In accordance with which the legitimate dues of the Oberhof to
both Pastor and