voice muttered:

"I ain't got ... nothing... Nothing!..."

"Don't act the rogue, you old rascal.... Ah, you are hiding your wood to warm the Prussians.... Well I am going to knock those Prussians out of your head."

The old man shook his head:

"But if I ain't got no wood...."

With angry gestures the sergeant commanded the soldiers to search the house. They examined everything, looked everywhere from cellar to garret. They found nothing, nothing but evidence of plunder and some broken furniture. In the cellar, damp with spilled cider, the casks were broken open and over the whole there spread a hideously offensive stench. That exasperated the sergeant who struck the flat end of the butt of his musket.

"Come on," he shouted, "come on, you old sloven, tell us where your wood is," and he rudely shook the old man who tottered and almost struck his head against the andiron of the fireplace.