“Your successor? How so, your successor?” asked the other, eagerly, as he pushed a piece of bread under a napkin, which he had just converted into a melon. “Do you propose to retire to private life, and resign your custom to me, Mr. Leonhard?”
“Such custom as this, willingly,” growled Leonhard, “that is, when I have received my money—when her ladyship pays the last penny she owes me!”
“Then she has not paid you for your services?” said the younger, in a faint voice.
“She has been in my debt since I first served her; she owes me for four dinners and eight soirées. She promised to pay each time, and has never kept her word; and I would certainly have discontinued coming, long ago, if I had not known that my money would then certainly be lost. As it is, I now and then receive a paltry instalment of a few groschens. To-day,” he continued, “she went so far as to promise me two groschens extra. Promised! yes, but will she keep her word? And it is very evident to me what the end of all this is to be. Her ladyship wishes to be rid of me; and I am to be set aside, little by little, and by you, my friend. To-day, we are to wait on the table together; but the next time she drums a company of matrimonial candidates together, you alone will be summoned. Therefore, I call you my successor. I hope you will profit by my example. It is a fearful thing to say, but nevertheless true, I stand before you as a living example of how her ladyship cheats a noble servant out of his well-earned wages. But patience, patience! I will not leave this field of my renown without having at least avenged myself! I intend to beg her ladyship to pay me; and if she refuses to do so, I will exercise vengeance, twofold, fearful vengeance. Before the company assembles, I will be so awkward as to fall down and break the four bottles of baptized wine—before the company is assembled, because if I did it afterwards, the guests would hear the crash, and know that she had had wine; but if I do it beforehand, nobody will believe that I broke the bottles.”
“That is a splendid idea,” observed the younger servant, grinning. “I will bear this in mind, and follow your example.”
“I told you I was a living example, my successor,” said Leonhard, impressively. “You can learn of me how to suffer, and how to avenge your wrongs.”
“But you spoke of twofold vengeance. In what will your second act of vengeance consist?”
“The second act of vengeance will be this: in spite of the promised—mark the words of your unfortunate living example—in spite of the promised two groschens, I will not cut the unhappy turkey (which, to judge by the length of her spurs, must have been torn from her family as an aged grandmother) into little, transparent slices, leaving half of it for the next day; but I will cut the whole turkey into pieces, and such great thick pieces, that it will not go round once, and nothing but the neck and drumsticks will be left when her ladyship’s turn comes. Bear this in mind for the future, my successor! I am now going to her ladyship with a flag of truce before the battle. If she rejects the conditions on which I consent to make peace, the result will be made known to you by its crashing consequences. I am now going, my successor; and I repeat it, for the last time, I am your living example!”
Gravely nodding his well-dressed and powdered head, the servant glided through the room on his inaudible dancing-shoes, and vanished through the side door, which opened into a small room, connected with the kitchen by a passage. Her ladyship was neither in this room nor in the kitchen, but, as Leonhard had prophesied, had repaired to the pantry and locked herself in. The living example smiled triumphantly, and knocked gently at the door.
“What is it?” asked her ladyship from within. “Who knocks?”