"Yes, repent it, if you please, my dear notary! Perhaps you are not aware that you are not a nobleman?"
"Reptile! dost thou dare to remind me of thy villany?" cried the notary, raising his stick, in spite of the endeavours of his wife and daughter, who sought to restrain him.
"Though I condescend to propose for your daughter, you ought not to forget the difference between your rank and mine!"
"It's the difference between an honest man and a rascal!" cried Tengelyi, still struggling to disengage his arm from the grasp of Mrs. Ershebet.
Mr. Catspaw saw clearly that the delay of another minute would prove dangerous. He retreated, and reached the door just when Tengelyi, whose fury brooked no restraint, broke from those who held him, and rushed in pursuit of him.
"God knows but I'll be the death of that fellow!" said the notary, as he returned to his house, accompanied by Vandory and Akosh, who luckily met him as he was running after the attorney. Exhausted with his passion, he flung himself on a chair; and though his wife, Vandory, and Akosh assured him that Mr. Catspaw was beneath an honest man's notice, a considerable time elapsed before he regained his usual equanimity. The witnesses of the scene, too, were greatly excited and interested; and a report was spread, by some, that Mr. Catspaw had been beaten and kicked, and by others, that Tengelyi would have killed the attorney, but for the flight of the latter.
While these and sundry other rumours on the subject of his danger were spreading in Tissaret, the worthy Mr. Catspaw reached his apartments in safety, though by no means in an enviable mood.
"What a confounded fool I've made of myself!" said he. "Propose for the girl, indeed! curse me, I'm a victim to that silly attachment of mine for the Retys. Would they have given me a penny more for marrying her? No. They cannot help giving me fifty thousand florins, but they won't give me a farthing more. And even if I were to prevent young Rety's marriage, his ungrateful mother would never forgive me. She'll never get over those money matters. Curse her! She'd skin a flint! But who the deuce could have thought that the woman wouldn't let me speak, and that Tengelyi would come home? And he insulted me!—publicly!—before everybody did he insult me, and I cannot even retaliate upon him! I dare not offend that puppy Akosh; for, after all, I don't see what I can do, except giving him Tengelyi's documents, and a few of Vandory's letters. It's a good plan, and it will protect me against being prosecuted. But before doing this I must have the bills in my pocket."
But even this resolution did not quite conquer Mr. Catspaw's apprehensions; for did not Akosh hate him? and might not the young man institute proceedings against him? No! he would bind Akosh by his word of honour,—these young men are so full of prejudice! "And besides, he cannot inform against me, without dishonouring his own name. His mother-in-law is too much mixed up with the affair," muttered the attorney, as he lighted a candle and sat down to examine Vandory's papers.
It was almost eleven o'clock when he finished his labours. He took a few of the letters, put them in an envelope, and placed them in a secret corner of his desk. His examination of the letters had satisfied him that the Retys could not think of braving the publicity of a court of justice. This discovery put him into the best of tempers.