"The case is this," the lawyer went on, without heeding the old gentleman's annoyance: "your friend Baron Lotter, my dear Burner, has been guilty of an action which amounts to fraud and forgery. He had been commissioned to, buy a couple of race-horses for the Court during the summer, somewhere in Bavaria, and had drawn the money for them--three thousand thalers--from the Grand Duke's privy purse, upon an order signed by His Excellency; but he appears not to have paid the money, but to have given a bill of exchange instead, with the forged signature of His Excellency, as representing the Marshal's office."
"Is not this monstrous?" cried the old gentleman, "as if the Upper Court Marshal's office ever paid, with bills of exchange!"
"The daring of the deed is indeed tremendous," continued the lawyer, "considering the fact which His Excellency has stated just now, and which was also known to the Herr Baron. And indeed he had taken the precaution to inform the clerk of the privy purse--into whose hands the bill of exchange would necessarily come first--when presented for payment, that the affair was all right; that he would hand him the money a week before it was due; the little service would not remain without its reward, as soon as the Baron had got his foot in the stirrup, in other words, as soon as he was Chamberlain. The poor fellow was weak enough ..."
"It is incredible!" murmured the Oberhofmarshal; "quite incredible!"
"To be sure, your Excellency," said the lawyer; "nevertheless, he was weak enough to consent to what was evidently a fraud, until to-day, two days before the bill was due, and when the money promised by the Baron had not appeared, his terror compelled him to make a clean breast of it to His Excellency. Meanwhile the bill had, yesterday, been sent to a local banker for collection. This banker, who, of course, had never seen anything of the kind occur in business, thought it advisable to make private and confidential inquiries of His Excellency as to the state of affairs, just before the clerk made his confession, and now His Excellency has the proof in his own hands."
The little old gentleman, who accompanied the lawyer's report with many a nod and with eager play of features, was opening his mouth, but the lawyer continued swiftly--
"His Excellency at once went to His Highness ..."
"I beg your pardon!" cried the Marshal. "I struggled for an hour as to whether I could not spare His Highness this grief. Moreover the young man's father was my dear old friend, who would turn in his grave if he could hear that a Lotter, his own son--it is terrible! And be assured, gentlemen, if I were a rich man--every one knows I am not--I ..."
"Your Excellency would in that case not have gone to Serenissimus," the lawyer went on; "but it was not to be avoided. His Highness, with his customary generosity, resolved at once ..."
"That is," the Marshal interrupted him, "in consequence of my report and recommendation."