“My friend, I did not agree to pay you any thing but those ten florins,” said the stranger. “I will comply with your demand, however, for you have been an excellent driver.”
He handed half a florin to the coachman, and entered the hotel with measured steps.
“Do you want supper?” asked the waiter, conducting him upstairs.
“Yes, if you please,” said the stranger; “but no expensive supper, merely a cup of tea and some bread and meat.”
“A poor devil!” muttered the porter, shrugging his shoulders disdainfully, and following the stranger with his eyes. “A very poor devil! only a room on the second floor; tea and bread and meat for supper! He must be a savant, a professor, or something of that sort.”
Meantime the footman and the waiter had carried the heavy trunk, with the gold and other valuables, up-stairs to the rooms of the stranger on the first floor. These rooms were really furnished in the most sumptuous manner, and worthy to be inhabited by guests of princely rank. Heavy silk and gold hangings covered the walls; blinds of costly velvet, fringed with gold, veiled the high arched windows; precious Turkish carpets adorned the floor; gilt furniture, carved in the most artistic manner and covered with velvet cushions, added to the splendor and beauty of the rooms.
The stranger lay on one of the magnificent sofas when the trunk with his valuables was brought in. He ordered the footman with a wave of his hand to place the trunk before him on the marble table, wrought by some Florentine artisan, and then he leisurely stretched out his legs again on the velvet sofa.
Scarcely had the door closed again behind the footman and the waiter, however, when he hastily rose, and drawing the trunk toward him, opened it with a small key fastened to his watch-chain.
“I believe I will now at length add up my riches,” he said to himself. “The time of the golden rain, I am afraid is over, at least for the present; for, in Germany, an author and savant is never taken for a Danae, and no one wants to be a Jove and lavish a golden rain upon him. The practical English, who are more sagacious in every respect, know, too, how to appreciate a writer of merit, and pay him better for his works. Thank God I was in England! Let us see now how much we have got.”
He plunged his hands into the small trunk and drew them forth filled with gold pieces.