“I advised him,” said he, “to carry hempseed in his pocket, and use a little now and then. He has grown so accustomed to this that he takes a grain every little while, puts it in his mouth, bites it, breaks it, eats it, spits out the husk. At night when he wakes he does the same. His wit is so sharp now from hempseed that his greatest intimates do not recognize him.”
“How is that?” asked Zamoyski.
“There is an oil in hempseed through which the man who eats it increases in wit.”
“God bless you,” said one of the colonels; “but oil goes to the stomach, not to the head.”
“Oh, there is a method in things!” answered Zagloba. “It is needful in this case to drink as much wine as possible; oil, being the lighter, is always on top; wine, which goes to the head of itself, carries with it every noble substance. I have this secret from Lupul the Hospodar, after whom, as is known to you, gentlemen, the Wallachians wished to create me hospodar; but the Sultan, whose wish is that the hospodar should not have posterity, placed before me conditions to which I could not agree.”
“You must use a power of hempseed yourself,” said Sobiepan.
“I do not need it at all, your worthiness; but from my whole heart I advise you to take it.”
Hearing these bold words, some were frightened lest the starosta might take them to heart; but whether he failed to notice them or did not wish to do so, it is enough that he merely laughed and asked,—
“But would not sunflower seeds take the place of hemp?”
“They might,” answered Zagloba; “but since sunflower oil is heavier, it would be necessary to drink stronger wine than that which we are drinking at present.”