"Bring us supper and a bottle of your best wine," said the merchant; "we pay well, and at once."
This announcement occasioned a visible improvement in the mood of the fat landlord, who even made an unsuccessful attempt to be polite. The merchant next asked for the wagons and wagoners. These questions were evidently unwelcome. At first Boniface pretended to know nothing about them, declaring that there were a great many wagons coming and going in his court-yard, and that there were several wagoners too, but that he did not know them.
It was in vain that the merchant tried to make him understand the object of his coming; the landlord remained obtuse, and was about to relapse into his former moroseness, when the young Pole came forward, and informed Mr. Schröter that this was not the way of dealing with such people. He then faced the landlord, called him all manner of hard names, and declared that he would arrest and carry him off on the spot unless he at once gave the most exact information.
The landlord looked timidly at the officer, and begged to be allowed to retire and send up one of the wagoners.
Soon a lanky figure with a brown felt hat came lumbering up stairs, started at the sight of the merchant, and at last announced, with pretended cheerfulness, that there he was.
"Where are the wagons? where are the bills of lading?"
The wagons were in the court-yard. The bills were reluctantly produced from the dirty leather purse of the wagoner.
"You guarantee me that your load remains complete and undisturbed?" asked the merchant.
The felt hat ungraciously replied that he could do nothing of the kind. The horses had been unharnessed and hid in a secret stable, that they might not be confiscated by the government; as to the fate of the wagons, he could neither prevent nor ascertain it, and all responsibility ceased in troublous times like these.
"We are in a den of thieves," said the merchant to his escort; "I must request your assistance in bringing these people to reason."