"Oh, he is a devilish fine fellow. His father and I are very old friends. He has been a little spoilt by wearing fine clothes and so on, but we will soon drive it out of him. Innkeeper, more claret! Yes, you see his father was in my debt, and I waited. Take what you like, parish-clerk!"
Sten sprang up and saw through a chink in the wall how Claus sat at the end of the table and carried on a conversation with the innkeeper and a stranger, who was probably the parish-clerk. The table was covered with jugs and pots, and the party did not seem to have suffered from thirst.
The parish-clerk, who thought that the smith had talked long enough, now led the conversation. "Listen, Claus; you say that he is nothing, that he has no occupation and no money. Do you know what one calls such a gentleman?"
"Well, one calls him a tramp. And do you know what the law says about vagabond tramps?"
"It says that whoever chooses may take such a tramp by the collar and put him in gaol. And that is right, thoroughly right. God, you see, from the beginning, has created men to work, do service, and make themselves useful----"
"Or to be rich," interrupted the innkeeper.
"Hush! Don't interrupt me--to make themselves useful in one way or another. Suppose," continued he, "that there are men who will not work; suppose that there are people who prefer to live at the expense of other people----"
Claus gave him a sharp look and seized his stick. But after taking a drink, the parish-clerk continued: "Then I ask--what is one to do with such people? Can anyone answer me?"
The innkeeper was about to answer, but the parish-clerk motioned him away with his left hand.
"Can anyone answer this? No, I say, for we know in part and prophesy in part. _Cur tuus benevolentium_." He finished his mug and got up in order not to spoil the effect of his speech by a bad translation of the Latin.
Sten lay down again and put his head under his pillow. It seemed to him that he had slept another four-and-twenty hours when he was aroused by a foot pushing his bed very emphatically. He sat up and saw by the light of the dawn, which fell through a crevice in the wall, that his friend Claus, who apparently did not venture to stoop, stood on one foot, and laying hold of a beam was feeling in the bed with his foot for his sleeping friend. He accompanied this search with short exclamations--"You! you!" When he caught sight of Sten's face in the dim light he drew his foot back and said: "Do you know what you are, you? Do you know that you are a tramp? Do you know that you will be put into gaol if you do not eat someone else's bread, seeing you have none of your own. I tell you the sheriff is after you, and if you are not off by sunrise you will be imprisoned. Do you understand?"