“As good, only longer. Give me the ducat first.”
“Here it is!”
The jester slapped his sides with his hands, as a cock with his wings, crowed again, and cried out, “Gracious gentlemen, listen! Who is this?”
“He complains of self-seeking, stands forth as a Cato;
Instead of a sabre he took a goose’s tail-feather
He wanted the legacy of a traitor, and not getting that
He lashed the whole Commonwealth with a biting rhyme.
“God grant him love for the sabre! less woe would it bring.
Of his satire the Swedes have no fear.
But he has barely tasted the hardships of war
When following a traitor he is ready to betray his king.”
All present guessed that riddle as well as the first. Two or three laughs, smothered at the same instant, were heard in the assembly; then a deep silence fell.
The voevoda grew purple, and he was the more confused in that all eyes were fixed on him at that moment. But the jester looked on one noble and then on another; at last he said, “None of you gentlemen can guess who that is?”
When silence was the only answer, he turned with the most insolent mien to the voevoda: “And thou, dost thou too not know of what rascal the speech is? Dost thou not know? Then pay me a ducat.”
“Here!” said the voevoda.
“God reward thee. But tell me, Krysh, hast thou not perchance tried to get the vice-chancellorship after Radzeyovski?”
“No time for jests,” replied Opalinski; and removing his cap to all present: “With the forehead, gentlemen! I must go to the council of war.”