"Which means that you wish me to buy it," said the freiherr, with a significant smile.
"Yes; and you can have it at once. I know that I might do better by waiting, but I have a tender heart, and am willing to part with it now. I make you the offer."
"How much a strich?" [Footnote: A strich, in Prague, was something more than two bushels.] asked the freiherr.
"Twenty florins. You will find it cheap."
"Very cheap, forsooth!" cried the host, with a loud laugh, in which his guests all joined. "You wish me to buy your corn for my peasants? Why, it will be worth its weight in gold, and they have none wherewith to pay me."
"You are a humane landlord and a nobleman; and I take it for granted that you will make it a gift to your peasantry."
"Why did you not do as much yourself?" asked the freiherr, scornfully. "Have you not just now said that your people were dying, while your granaries are full? No, no; I want no corn; but when corn has truly risen to twenty florins, then I shall open my granaries, and my crops shall be for sale."
And the freiherr filled his glass and drank a bumper.
"You should not speak so loud," said Josephi "for you know that the emperor has issued an edict, exacting that all those who have grain shall meet him in Prague, that the government may buy their grain at a reasonable price."
"What fool would heed such an edict?" cried the freiherr. "The emperor is not master of our granaries. In the rural districts the nobleman is emperor, and God forbid that it should ever be otherwise!"