"Unfortunately, there is hurry, your Excellency! I have orders to have the mandate read in my presence."
The words staggered the governor. He, the virtual, if not the nominal ruler of Hungary, to be spoken to like this, and to have the law laid down in this fashion to him!
"Hoity-toity! I have other things to do! Suppose, too, I am not inclined to read it?"
"Then your Excellency will permit me to observe that I am empowered to proceed to extreme measures. In the event of your Excellency not reading that letter at once, I am commissioned to call in half a dozen officers of public health who are waiting outside, with a regimental surgeon, for the purpose of placing your Excellency in a strait-waistcoat, and escorting you to Vienna under surveillance—you will guess whither?"
The governor's face became crimson with rage.
"What do you say—For me, a strait-waistcoat? Me, the representative of the crown? Do you mean to say the Emperor said that, that he has written it? Impossible, man, impossible!"
And he tore the letter out of the envelope, and read its contents.
They were short, and his eyes became suddenly blood-shot as he read as follows:
"From to-day you are relieved of your office: make over your keys to the district commissioner at once.
"Joseph."