Count Waldorff-Kielmansegg found some pleasure in bowing three times with ironical ceremony.
But Geiger-Hans took up the tale again with a dry disregard of any possibility of humour.
"Here we are, I repeat, in the heart of a great conspiracy ... and not one of us but risks his neck by so much as merely looking on! The Sword, the Law, the Church. 'Tis a conspiracy well headed!"
As he waved his hand, Steven's eyes were directed towards the table, and he suddenly realized that the papers lying in such disorder were the contents of the mail-bag that hung on the arm of the theologian's chair. His thoughts went back to the dilapidated courier downstairs: "Crime of the first category," had said that official.
"Bah!" cried the Jurist, "Jerome does not kill; he but fleeces his little flock, as all the world knows."
"Your pardon, doctor," retorted the fiddler, with a fine inciseness in his tone. "The most paternal government makes an example now and again. And the head of one Carl Schill is this moment affixed, minus its body, on the toll-gate of Helmstadt. But reassure yourselves, the odious French invention of Dr. Guillotin has not yet superseded your old Germanic square-sword; your heads would be hacked off in the true heroic style. 'Tis a consolation."
"Augh!" groaned Barbarossa, and sank into his seat at the head of the table, clasping his middle as if a sober sickness had fallen upon him. His very beard seemed to turn pale. But presently it flamed again with a revulsion of anger:
"What the hangman! How is one to manage these fools? They sit, and soak, and sop, and suck, and enough to snick twenty necks on the table before them. I told them so, just now, when I wished to put the wine away."
"The can is empty," here intoned the theologic Studiosus, after the manner of one giving out a psalm. "Nunc est bibendum—Aut bibe aut abi!"
From behind his beard the Senior growled like a dog. But the Jurist intervened.