"I have a mandatum for your examination on oath."
"Keep your mandatum in your pocket, and measure out thirty florins' worth of oats from my granary: that's the fine. For I don't intend to be examined on oath."
"Indeed?"
"Of course. If you bid me, I will swear: I'm a rare hand at it; I can swear for half an hour at a stretch without repeating myself."
Again the smiling lawyer intervened:
"Give us your word of honor, then, that besides those produced, there is no servant in your household who has not yet been baptized."
"Well, I give you my word of honor that there is not 'in my household' even a living creature who is a pagan."
Topándy's word of honor only just escaped being broken for that gypsy-girl, whom he had bought in her sixth year from encamping gypsies for two dollars and a sucking pig, now, ten years later, did not belong any more to the household, but presided at table when gentlefolk came to dinner. But she still bore that heathen name, which she had received in the reedy thicket. She was still called Czipra.
And the godless fellow had snatched her away from the water of Christianity.
"Has the honorable Court any other complaint to make against me?"