On the very same day Mr. John was surprised to receive a visit from the magistrate, Mr. Monori, and this certainly was a wonder, for the magistrate never made any but official visits.
"To what do I owe this extraordinary pleasure?" asked Mr. John, familiarly inviting the magistrate to sit down on a couch.
"I have come in the matter of this Margari," said Monori, holding himself very stiffly and fixing his eyes sharply on Mr. John. "Since our conversation of this morning, the circumstance has come to my knowledge that one of my colleagues in the county of Arad has succeeded in finding the long-lost Coloman Lapussa."
At these words Mr. John began to smooth out the ends of his mustache and chew them attentively.
"The young man confesses to having forged the bill, but asserts that it was Margari who led him to do so, and that the bill signed by him was originally for forty florins only, so that undoubtedly somebody else must have turned it into 40,000."
Mr. John coughed very much at these words,—no doubt the bit of mustache which he had bit off stuck in his throat.
"This is a very ticklish circumstance, I must confess," continued Monori, "for although the young man's offence has thereby been considerably lightened, yet the burden of the charge has now been shifted to other shoulders hitherto quite free from suspicion. No doubt, he being a minor, under strict control, did what he did as a mere schoolboy frolic, but this Margari and an unknown somebody else will find it not quite such a laughing matter."
Mr. John's mustache was by this time not enough for him, he began nibbling his nails as well.
"But what are you driving at?" he said. "How does all this concern me?"
"It concerns you, sir, in this way: you told me that Margari was your confidential agent, and therefore he must have destroyed the bill at your bidding."