"No one will listen to an individual, and a dreamer at that."
"What he will divulge will not only be believed, but will excite a storm against your Highness."
"Gossip from bookworms will not hurt me."
"This person is a highly-respected man of character, and will use his observations to demand of the whole civilized world that the possibility of similar occurrences at this Court should be made impossible."
"Let him do what he dare," cried the Sovereign, with an outbreak of fury, "we shall know how to protect ourselves."
"The exposure may yet be guarded against; but there is only one last and radical remedy."
"Speak out, your Excellence; I have always respected your judgment."
"What inflames the Professor," continued the courtier, cautiously, "will become generally known; at all events it will produce a great sensation and dangerous scandal; nothing further. It was a personal observation only that he was compelled to make at the foot of the tower; it was a conjecture only which he gave vent to beneath the same tower. According to his assertion, two attempts have been made, and yet neither has been followed by evil consequences. To be able to provoke the public judgment of the civilized world on such grounds is doubtful. However upright the narrator may be, he may himself have been deceived. Your Highness remarks rightly that the irritation of a single scholar would occasion disagreeable gossip, nothing further."
"Most admirable, your Excellence," interrupted the Sovereign.
"Unfortunately there is one important circumstance that I have not yet added. With respect to that personal observation at the foot of the tower, the Scholar has a witness, and I am that witness. When he calls upon me for my testimony and speaks of my personal observation, I must declare that he is right, for I am not accustomed to consider half-truth as truth."