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Rh ship,” said Friesshardt, “it was me, Friesshardt.”

“You should say, ‘It was I,’” said Gessler. “Proceed.”

“Which I am a loyal servant of your Excellency’s, and in your Excellency’s army, and seeing as how I was told to stand by this ’ere pole and guard that there hat, I stood by this ’ere pole, and guarded that there hat—all day, I did, your Excellency. And then up comes this man here, and I says to him—‘Bow down to the hat,’ I says. ‘Ho!’ he says to me—‘ho, indeed!’ and he passed on without so much as nodding. So I takes my pike, and I taps him on the head to remind him, as you may say, that there was something he was forgetting, and he ups and hits me, he does. And then the crowd runs up with their sticks and hits me and Leuthold cruel, your Excellency. And while we was a-ﬁghting with them, this here