And even at that moment his strength of mind did not forsake him. He looked Henry Catsrider straight in the face, as if they had never known each other, as if he had never trespassed against him.
The headsman planted himself in front of the sheriff and said: "'They have called me, and I have come!'"
Valentine, with perfect sangfroid, completed the quotation:
"'I have sprung from the dust of an accursed earth.'"
This distich, it is said, was written in Chaldaic characters on the wings of those locusts which first appeared at the call of Moses, and always reappear when the Lord would abase the pride of man.
Everyone knew this saying. The words of the sheriff, therefore, called forth a slight smile on every face, and a murmur of merriment ran through the room because he had so dexterously turned the tables on the coarse intruder.
Still more satisfied with his wisdom were they when he pronounced judgment in the precedence dispute. "The Church first, then the temporal power, last of all the headsman."
But the Walloon general, a strapping fellow, tapped his saber, said he was the first man in the town, and made a terrible to-do.
Valentine Kalondai thereupon shoved back his presidential chair, laid down his mace, girded on his sword, and donned his hat. There were now four persons in the council-chamber who had their hats on.
Then he turned to the general and said: "Have we come hither to deliberate or to fight?"