At the entrance to the best parlour, he stood face to face with the great man with the lion's mane, on either side of whom sat the old pastor and Herr Merckel. Felix lounged in the window-sill, trying to assume an air of nonchalance. He now considered his former playmate too inferior an object on which even to bestow his hate. But the old landlord greeted Boleslav with a benign smile. Had he come there with the purpose of treating every one present to a bottle of the celebrated Muscat wine, the smile could not have been more smugly servile.
Lightning-flashes irradiated from beneath the prominent brows of the old pastor, and the Landrath sat coolly contemplating his fingers, which were white and bony as a skeleton's. Boleslav felt his bosom swell proudly. "His hand against every man; every man's hand against him." It was the old story!
A voice from the crowd hiccoughed out some unflattering remark. The Schrandeners received it with laughter.
"It's the poor father, the unhappy father," old Merckel whispered to the Landrath, with a melancholy elevation of his eyebrows.
"As you have summoned me here," exclaimed Boleslav, "I demand your protection from the insults of the mob!"
The Landrath drooped his eyelids and bowed.
"Silence, dear people!" he commanded, stroking his clean-shaven chin, and then he added, "I shall have any person who makes a disturbance ejected."
He consulted a green portfolio that lay spread before him on the table. Behind him a little man in grey was energetically trying goose quills. Probably he was the reporter.
The examination began. With frigid politeness the Landrath put the usual questions.
"Your word is of course to be trusted, _Herr Baron_, but have you proofs?"
"Up to what date does your answer hold good?"
"Have you proofs to support that statement?"
"I regret to say that the name von Schranden is not to be found in the army list."
There was silence. Boleslav bit his lips.
"Ha, ha!" came triumphantly from the window. The exclamation put Boleslav on his mettle.
"To have borne my real name would have involved me in difficulties."
"Because, through a rumour which I was powerless to contradict, there was a blot on that name."
It was clear this man intended to humiliate him to the dust before passing on him the inevitable sentence.