“Because I met the porter, paid him, and sent him with them to my house; and my servant, instructed by me, will destroy them.”
“You should always finish yourself the work you commence, sir. Are you sure these thousand copies are at your house?”
“Certainly.”
“You deceive yourself, sir; they are here. Ah, you thought that I, sorcerer that I am, would let myself be foiled in that way. You thought it a brilliant idea to buy off my messenger. Well, I have a steward, and you see it is natural for the steward of a sorcerer to be one also. He divined that you would go to the journalist, and that you would meet my messenger, whom he afterwards followed, and threatened to make him give back the gold you had given him, if he did not follow his original instructions, instead of taking them to you. But I see you doubt.”
“I do.”
“Look, then, and you will believe;” and, opening an oak cabinet, he showed the astonished chevalier the thousand copies lying there.
Philippe approached the count in a menacing attitude, but he did not stir. “Sir,” said Philippe, “you appear a man of courage; I call upon you to give me immediate satisfaction.”
“Satisfaction for what?”
“For the insult to the queen, of which you render yourself an accomplice while you keep one number of this vile paper.”
“Monsieur,” said Cagliostro, “you are in error; I like novelties, scandalous reports, and other amusing things, and collect them, that I may remember at a later day what I should otherwise forget.”