"The attorney acts as middleman between the borrowers and lenders of money, and the engineer is always writing and sketching. I suppose you saw his last quodlibet with the sheriff's portrait, and the autographs of all the magistrates, and with a few bank-notes mixed up with them. It was remarkably well done, especially the notes."
"Capital!" said James. "Occupation is the life of prison discipline. It improves the criminals, you know."
Völgyeshy, who had scarcely kept his impatience within bounds, interrupted this conversation.
"One of the cells is untenanted," said he; "why don't you put Tengelyi in that?"
"Impossible!" said the captain, dryly. "The worshipful magistrates have resolved that one of the rooms must be kept empty, to provide for an emergency."
"But is not this an emergency?" asked Völgyeshy.
"I don't care whether it is or not!" said the captain, twisting his moustache. "All I say is, that the worshipful magistrates have instructed me to keep that room empty. I have my orders, sir. Besides, we cannot put the notary into that room to please anybody; for Lady Rety has used it as a larder these three years, and she keeps the key."
Still Völgyeshy persisted; but the recorder interfered, saying, that the mildness which the sheriff had recommended could not, by any means, be carried to the bursting open and disarranging the larder of the sheriff's wife. And when Völgyeshy told them that, at least, an arrangement might be made by confining two of the three prisoners in one room, and assigning one of their cells to his client, his proposal excited a violent storm of indignation.
"I wish you may get it!" cried Captain Karvay. "I wonder what the baron would say if I were to force somebody upon him! And I don't know what he would say if I were to tell him it was to make room for a village notary."
But the decision of the affair was, as usual, brought about by Mr. Skinner's energy. That great lawyer protested that he could not think of fighting or squabbling for such a self-evident point; that Mr. Völgyeshy had a right to defend the notary as much as he pleased; but that the worshipful magistrates had an equal right not to care for Mr. Völgyeshy or his defence.