He expected the flimsy structure to collapse at any moment.

She and her husband managed to fix up a false floor in one of their rooms in which they fed the roosters; so whenever a picket came in sight her call would bring the whole family out of the woods and clearing into the refuge, where they remained peacefully amongst corn-cobs till the danger had passed.

to whack the spoils of a robbery

This particular work, quite negative in its outlook, is a caustic critique of German society and suggests that German art, in its desire for modernity, vacillates between empty newness and wasted antiquitarianism.