"You have left my orders in the village? If that fiddling beggar dares present himself near my doors again, I shall have him flogged till the skin hangs in strips, and then ... and then set the dogs upon him. The miserable rapscallion; the impudent cur, to dare to play his tricks as high as my very table, to dare to break bread with my wife!"
The Burgrave struck the table so that the rummer of Burgundy at his elbow splashed red upon his hand; the Jäger glanced at the empty bottle and then at his lord's inflamed countenance, and gave his soldierly response:
"Zu Befehl." Then he added, the insolence of the servant who feels superior to his employer in coolness and clear-headedness piercing through his well-drilled air of subordination: "May it please your Excellency, the folk about here believe the fiddler to be some great person in disguise."
The Burgrave's eyes were bloodshot this evening; the Jäger was minded of the glare of an old boar at bay.
"It is quite likely," he proceeded jauntily, "that the gentleman was similarly deceived."
"The gentleman—the gentleman? What gentleman, you rascal?"
"The gracious young gentleman, the cousin of her Excellency."
The Burgrave gave a savage growl:
"Out of my sight!"
With some additional briskness of gait, Kurtz drew the solid oak door between himself and the Chancellor.