The postilion sounded his horn again, the strangers were entering the stage. At the door stood the postmaster, and behind him his wife, the commanding postmistress.
“Niclas,” she whispered, “I must and will know who these strangers are. Go and demand their passports.”
The obedient Niclas stepped out and cried in a thundering voice to the postilion, who was just about to start, to wait. Stepping to the stage, he opened the door.
“Your passports, gentlemen,” he said, roughly. “You forgot to show me your passports.”
The curious observers breathed more freely, and nodded encouragingly to the daring postmaster.
“You rejoice,” murmured his wife, who was still standing in the door, from whence she saw all that passed, and seemed to divine the thoughts of her gaping friends—“you rejoice, but you shall know nothing. I shall not satisfy your curiosity.”
Mr. Niclas still stood at the door of the stage. His demand had not been attended to; he repeated it for the third time.
“Is it customary here to demand passports of travellers?” asked a commanding voice from the stage.
Niclas, and taking the two mysterious cases from the stage, he placed them before the strangers.
“Let us go into the house,” whispered the king to his friends. “We must make bonne mine a mauvais jeu,” and he approached the door of the house—there stood the wife of the postmaster, with sparkling eyes and a malicious grin.