Wilhelm now broke in.

“Not a word of that is true,” he said quietly.  “Neither of us said one word which could justify this inconceivable charge.”

“The remark which this informer seems to have taken hold of,” Schrotter observed, “was not made by my friend, Dr. Eynhardt, but by me.  I did not say either that the occurrence was unimportant, but that it had no general significance—­that it was not a proof of the prevailing feeling at large.”

“It comes to the same thing whether you say it has no importance or no significance,” interrupted the informer.  “That gentleman may have made the remark, but I certainly heard it, and as a loyal servant of his majesty—­”

“That is quite enough,” said the lieutenant of police authoritatively.  Then turning to the two friends—­“I am very sorry, but as things stand at present, I must let the law take its course.  Do you persist in your charge?” he asked the informer.

“Yes, Herr Lieutenant; my duty to my sovereign—­”

“Silence.  Gentlemen, I shall be obliged to notify the matter to the proper authorities.  I expect you will be called upon to clear yourselves before the magistrate, which I have no doubt you will be able to do successfully.  I need not detain you any longer.”

Wilhelm and Schrotter bowed courteously and withdrew, without vouchsafing a glance at the informer.  The latter lingered, as if he would have liked to continue the conversation with the lieutenant of police, but an emphatic “You may go!” sent him rapidly over the threshold of the office.

Five days afterward, on a Friday, Schrotter and Wilhelm were summoned to appear in the Stadtvogtei [Footnote:  A certain prison in Berlin.] before the magistrate, a disagreeable person with a bilious complexion, venomous eyes behind his spectacles, and the unpleasing habit of continually scooping out his ear with the little finger of his left hand.  The two friends, the informer, and the policeman were present.  The magistrate could not have received them differently if they had been accused of robbing and murdering their parents.  To be sure, he behaved no better to the informer.  His expression of unmitigated disgust was perhaps a freak of nature, and no indication of the true state of his feelings.

He had a bundle of papers before him, in which he searched for some time before opening his mouth.

“You are accused of having made use of offensive expressions regarding his majesty,” he said to Schrotter.

“On a preposterously unfounded charge,” he retorted.

“And you too,” he turned to Wilhelm.

“I can only repeat Dr. Schrotter’s answer.”

“Give your evidence,” he ordered the policeman.

The man did so.

“Could you understand what the gentleman said?”

“No.”

“How far was Patke behind them?”

“A few steps.”

“You must be more exact.”