Back came Abraham again into the ante-room.
"Mr. Matyi" was busy at a writing-table; he seemed to have some important correspondence to transact there.
The Jew was radiant with delight; he hardly knew where to begin: "It's right enough; the Emperor himself has countersigned the petition with his 'fiat.' Here is his name! He himself has put in the 'i,' praised be the Lord!"
But suddenly he broke off in his thanksgiving as he regarded the document. "Ay, woe's me!"
"Why, his Majesty has clean forgotten to put the dot over the 'i,' and without this, the 'i' looks exactly like an 'e,' and it only means from being a short ass, I shall now be but a long one! Alas, I am a dead man. I beseech you to be so very kind as to put the necessary little dot in for me, so that it may be done with the same ink. You have the pen in your hand ready."
"What are you thinking of?" cried "Mr. Matyi" indignantly, "to correct the imperial hand-writing, why, it would be a rank forgery! Give me the petition, I'll take it back to the Emperor, so he may put it in."
And thereupon, off he went through the folding doors with the paper.
Abraham breathed freely, he had attained his end, and this without laying out thousands of ducats; he had managed it for two hundred. He fumbled in the money compartment of the musical pear, and laid the ducats on the writing-table of "Mr. Matyi," so that the latter should not fail to see them when he returned to his correspondence.
The young man was soon back again.