“What!” I cried, my whole attitude changing to one of greedy expectation. “Shall I be paid?”
“Why, natürlich,” said he, turning over sheets of music, and averting his face to hide a smile.
“Oh! then I will sing.”
“Good! Only please to remember that it is my concert, and I am responsible for the soloists; and pray think rather more about the beautiful glittering serpent than about the beautiful glittering thalers.”
“I can think about both,” was my unholy, time-serving reply.
Fifty thalers. Untold gold!