"And who is troubling her rights?"
"Your majesty."
The king frowned, and cast an angry glance on the bold jester.
Gotzkowsky continued, calmly: "Your majesty is depriving us of our good rights, in so far as you wish to prevent us from being honest people, and keeping our word sacred."
"Oh, now I understand you," said the king, laughing. "You are speaking of the Russian war-tax. Berlin shall not pay it."
"Berlin will pay it, in order that your majesty may retain her in your gracious favor; in order that the great Frederick may not have to blush for his faithless and dishonest town, which would not then deserve to be the residence of a king. How! would your majesty trust the men who refused to redeem their openly-pledged word? who look upon sworn contracts as a mouse-trap, to be escaped from as soon as the opportunity offers, and when the dangerous cat is no longer sitting at the door? Berlin will pay—that our sons may not have to blush for their fathers; that posterity may not say that Berlin had stamped herself with the brand of dishonor. We have pledged our word, and we must keep it."
"You must not, for I do not wish you to do so," cried Frederick, with anger-flashing eyes. "I will institute reprisals. The imperial court has refused the payment of the Bamberg and Wurzburg bonds."
"And your majesty considers that proceeding highly dishonest and unjust," interrupted Gotzkowsky; "and while you wish to punish the empire for its breach of faith, you punish doubly the town of Berlin by depriving her of the last thing that remained to her in her day of need and misfortune—her honorable name. You cannot be in earnest, sire? Punish, if you choose, the imperial judge, but do not make Berlin the dishonored Jack Ketch to carry out your sentence."
"But are you so anxious to get rid of your money? What is the amount that you still owe?"
"A million and a half, sire."