"Are you sure," said Mr. Slatzanek, addressing the recorder, "of that wretched Vetshösy having joined Bantornyi's party?"
"I grieve to say that there can be no doubt about it."
"Did I not always tell you," cried the Baron—"did I not tell you a thousand times that I suspected Vetshösy? Three years ago, just a fortnight before the election, on a Friday afternoon, unless I am mistaken, I met you, Mr. Kriver, at the coffee-house. There were some of us, and some officers likewise, and I lighted my pipe and sat by you, and I said: 'That fellow Vetshösy——'"
"You were quite right, sir; but——"
"That fellow Vetshösy, said I, is a liberal, and, what is worse, he talks of his principles; he has some property, and——"
"Just so!" interposed Slatzanek. "Vetshösy is an influential man; the more fools we for making him justice of a district in which there are so many votes; but——"
"I know what you are about to say!" cried the Baron. "He might be gained over. Now, I'll tell you, I live in his district. Very well then, what do you say to a hunt—a legal hunt—a wolf hunt? We will have the peasants to drive the game. You will all come, and he, as justice of the district, must be one of us. Of course our wolf hunt is but a legal fiction, but he, as district judge, must be one of us, and we'll snare him, that we will."
"Alas!" sighed the recorder, "this is well and good; but the great obstacle is your son, the young Baron. He has more influence in the county than you have, and he is against us."
"Devil of a boy! devil of a boy!" cried the Baron, "and yet how often did I not say: My son Valentine——"
"Suppose you were to exert your paternal authority?"