"But can't you see that on the three hundred florins the amount of tax would be seventeen florins, and on the two hundred thousand you will have to pay nine thousand florins as legacy taxes?"
"Is that the law?"
"Of course it is, clear and distinct."
"Then I shall pay according to law. I do not intend to cheat the Treasury."
The Vice-Governor broke into a laugh, and Siegfried took hold of both my ears and gave them a hard pull. "Oh! you, you, you doctor!" He would have said you fool, or you simpleton, but he found the "doctor" more explanatory, and a good deal more to the purpose. Why, did I not understand that it was the patriotic duty of a Hungarian citizen to cheat the Treasury whenever an opportunity to do so was offered?
"Just you let him alone," said the Vice-Governor, laughing. "He is an innocent, honest fellow, with a tender conscience, and nothing so tough and hardened as you. Come, friend Kornel! tell me, what do you think of the rate at which the other things are estimated? For instance, your uncle's private room? The whole furniture is valued at twenty-three florins. Do you think that underestimated? No? Well, here are his pipes—old clay pipes, stuck into cane stems. They are valued at ninety kreutzers."
I laughed. "The pipes are hardly worth more, but the stems would be well worth the money, for they and the old reeds in my uncle's room were his bank-note receptacles, and for all I know they may be full of hundred- or even thousand-florin bills."
"Well, if you are not the greatest ass in Christendom, then I am—and no doubt about it," said Siegfried, vexed. "Here is this fellow actually denouncing his own money to the police. If you are such an imbecile, and really do not care for your own profit, then at least do not talk without being asked."
"Hadn't you better use more civil language?" I asked. "I really am not used to such strong expressions."
"Oh, of course; I beg your pardon! Only I should like to know what you will do without ready money? Because you have compelled our friend, the Vice-Governor here, to take all the money on the premises, that is, all the contents of the reeds and pipe-stems, of which you blabbed, into his own custody, whereas you might have kept your own counsel, and culled the money out at your leisure, without anybody having an idea of its existence."