"I know that also," said the count. "The Fertöszeg estate has passed into the hands of another proprietor, who has a legal right to withdraw the lease and revoke the conditions made and agreed to by her predecessor; and the Herr Vice-palatine is come, at the request of the baroness, to serve a notice to quit."
Herr Bernat did not like it when any one interrupted him or knew beforehand what he intended to say.
"On the contrary, I came because the baroness desires to renew the lease. She has learned how kind to the poor your worship is, and offers the castle and park at half the rent paid heretofore." He fancied this would melt the haughty lord of the castle, but it seemed to increase his hauteur.
"Thanks," frigidly responded the count. "If the baroness thinks the rent too high, she will find in her own neighborhood poor people whom she can assist. I shall continue to pay the same rent I paid to the former owner."
"Then my business will be easily settled. I have brought my clerk with me; he can write out the necessary papers, and the matter can be concluded at once."
"Thank you very much," returned the count, but without offering to shake hands. Instead, he kept his arms crossed behind his back.
"Before we proceed to business," resumed the vice-palatine, "I must tell your worship an anecdote. A professor once told his pupils that he knew everything. Shortly afterward he asked one of the lads what his name was. 'Why,' responded the youth, 'how does it come that you don't know my name—you who know everything?'"
"I cannot see why you thought it necessary to relate this anecdote to me," observed the count, without a smile.
"I introduce it because I am compelled to inquire your worship's name and title, in order to draw up the contracts properly."
This, then, was the strategem by which he proposed to learn the name which no one yet had been able to decipher on the count's letters?