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.