Herr Balzer sprang backwards from the speaker.
He looked round anxiously, then he gazed into the count's calm face, and said, with a constrained smile:
"You jest, sir?"
"Certainly not," said the count; "you will have the goodness to listen to me quietly and without interruption, and I do not doubt that you will perfectly agree with me."
Herr Balzer seemed not to know what he thought of this strange calm man, but he bent his head as an intimation that he was willing to hear.
In the simplest way in the world the count proceeded:
"Your affairs, sir, are in a desperate state; you are not only a bankrupt, but you have almost from the commencement of your financial existence only concealed your old debts by incurring larger ones, a course which necessarily would bring you to complete ruin in the end."
Herr Balzer looked at the count in great surprise.
"The moment of unavoidable ruin has come," he said, "I am in possession of a number of demands upon you, which if presented must infallibly overthrow your credit. Beside this, your position is most unhappily compromised, since you have, to save yourself, or rather to stave off the time of inevitable ruin, pursued the plan of forging various bills of exchange."
"Count," cried Herr Balzer in a voice whose impudence ill concealed his fear, "I----"