"Then what do you think I ought to do?" he asked his wife.
"Well, it is of no use his doling you out mere driblets; for the great services you have rendered him he ought to give you something more in proportion to your merits—a little estate in the country, for instance. There we could settle down comfortably."
"True, and he has lots of such little properties which are of no use to him at all. What do you say, for instance, to an estate of one hundred acres or so; it would be a mere flea-bite to him. But flea-bite or no flea-bite that's all one to me. I wish him to give it me and give it he must. I mean to pick and choose."
"And suppose he says no?"
"He'll never say that, or if he does, I shall say something to somebody and then it will be he who will be sorry and not I. Oh, he'll take jolly good care not to make Margari angry. His honour has much more need of Margari's friendship than Margari has of his honour's."
And we shall very soon see under what auspices Margari hoped to get the little country estate from Mr. John Lapussa as a reward for his faithful services.
Meanwhile the action brought by Madame Langai against Mr. John Lapussa was still in its initial stage. Both parties were inexhaustible in producing documents and raising points of law, but it seemed highly probable that Mr. John would win. Mr. John appeared almost daily before the magistrate, whom he called his dear friend and whom he frequently invited to dine, an invitation which, naturally, was never accepted. One day Mr. Monori, for that was the worthy magistrate's name, asked Mr. John whether he knew anything of a certain Margari who was soliciting the post of a clerk in the district court and gave as his reference the Lapussa family in whose service he had been for some years. Mr. John, with his innate niggardliness, at once seized this opportunity for disembarrassing himself of an importunate beggar by saddling the county with him. He exalted "the worthy, excellent man" to the skies, and especially praised his rectitude, his sobriety, his diligence!
"But is he trustworthy?" inquired the magistrate. "You see there are various little cash payments he will have to see to, is he clean handed?"
"As good as gold, I assure you. I could trust him with thousands. Why some of my own bills are in his keeping—" and with that he proceeded to say as many pretty things of Margari as if he were a horse dealer trying to palm off a blind nag on some ignorant bumpkin at a fair.
In his delight at having so successfully rid himself of such an incubus, he made his valet-de-chambre slip over to Margari to tell the worthy man to wait upon him on the morrow at 11 o'clock precisely, as he had a very pleasant piece of news to impart to him; for he meant to make Margari believe that it was through his, Mr. John Lapussa's special influence, that he had obtained the coveted appointment and so get him to renounce all further claims upon his old patron.