"Where all the others are." And he lifted the cover from the basket and pointed to the collection within of yet unopened correspondence.
The district commissioner raised his hands with a little deprecating gesture, as he whispered anxiously: "But your Excellency, these are in the Emperor's handwriting; they should not lie here; they are urgent, surely?"
His Excellency looked at the speaker as a fencer measures his antagonist.
The district commissioner looked puzzled.
"Your Excellency," he began, "this affair is not done with. His Majesty has sent a second letter to me by special courier, and I have read it. He orders me in it to come to you immediately, and express the gravest disapproval that Mathias Ráby, notwithstanding the imperial safe conduct, has been made a prisoner and placed in the dungeon of the Assembly House, among the scum of convicted criminals. I am to take care that he is released, and that he is allowed to defend himself as a free man without hindrance."
"That procedure won't be according to our laws."
"Perhaps not, but in view of the accusation brought against Ráby, his Majesty orders that he be detained in a place of confinement more befitting his rank and calling."
"That shall be done," said his Excellency, and therewith he rang the bell.
The lackey answered it, and he gave him the order:
"Go at once to the Assembly House at Pesth, and tell the lieutenant he is to wait on me immediately."
Then he turned to his interrupted dictation as a sign his guest could go.
An hour after this, Mr. Laskóy was announced. He had come to represent the Council, as the latter was engaged over the vintage.
His Excellency looked ready to eat his visitor.
"What is all this foolery in the dungeon of the Assembly House, pray? Is this the way you keep order? Mathias Ráby has only been imprisoned four days, yet already the Emperor has had a letter from him, telling him all about the thieves' den where he is shut up. Could you not manage things better, and fetter him so that he could not write a letter, even if he had pencil and paper?"
Mr. Laskóy stammered and stuttered and lamely excused himself, and finally got enraged, and vowed to himself he would soon find a way out of this business.