“Well, unluckily, I have not, and so I request you to let me finish my breakfast first,” said Thugut, attacking once more the wing of the turkey on his plate.
A long pause ensued. The men stood in the most painful embarrassment at the door, where the minister’s stern glance had arrested them, and a most unpleasant apprehension of what might be the result of this scene began to take hold of their minds. Flashing sword-blades and muskets aimed at their breasts would not have frightened them so much as the aspect of the calm, proud, and forbidding figure of the minister, and the utter indifference, the feeling of perfect security with which he took his breakfast in full view of a seditious mob filled the rioters with serious apprehensions for the safety of their own persons.
“I am sure a good many soldiers and policemen are hidden about the palace,” thought Mr. Wenzel, “and that is the reason why he permitted us to enter, and why he is now so calm and unconcerned; for as soon as we get into the dining-room, those fine-looking footmen will lock the door behind, and the soldiers will rush out of that other door and arrest us.”
These pleasant reflections were interrupted by another terrible glance from the minister, which caused poor Mr. Wenzel to tremble violently.
“Now, gentlemen, if you please, come in; I have finished my breakfast.” said Thugut with perfect coolness. “I am quite ready and anxious to hear what you wish to say to me. So, come in, come in!”
The men who stood behind Mr. Wenzel moved forward, but the tall, herculean figure of the member of the tailors’ guild resisted them and compelled them to stand still.
“No, I beg your excellency’s pardon,” said Mr. Wenzel, fully determined not to cross the fatal threshold of the dining-room, “it would not become poor men like us to enter your excellency’s dining-room. Our place is in the anteroom—there we will wait until your excellency will condescend to listen to us.”
This humble language, this tremulous voice, that did not tally at all with the air of a lion-hearted and outspoken popular leader, which Mr. Wenzel had assumed in the street, struck terror and consternation into the souls of the men who had so rashly followed him into the palace.
The minister rose; his broad-shouldered figure loomed up proudly, a sarcastic smile played on his angular and well-marked features; his shaggy white eyebrows convulsively contracted up to this moment—the only outward symptom of anger which Thugut, even under the most provoking circumstances, ever exhibited—relaxed and became calm and serene again, as he approached the men with slow and measured steps.
“Well, tell me now what you have come for? What can I do for you?” asked Thugut, in the full consciousness of his power.