At this speech Mr. Leányfalvy shifted his zouave from the left to the right shoulder.
"Don't you know, my dear boy, that out of the mouth of the poor, complaints are not heard. There must be a God who hears them, nevertheless. Yet the government is a power against which one man can avail nothing. How can you protect the sown fields from the marmots? Man is just such a marmot. Dismiss him who is now in office, and put another in his place; you only change for the worse. As long as there are fools and knaves in the world, so long will the one always rob the other."
"Now if you reckon abuses of office among social ills, I can but tell you that if you have a will, you can amend them. And this will have I."
"Yes, but have you likewise the power? 'Whoso is wanting in strength is powerless in wrath.' Besides, who stands behind you?"
"The Emperor himself."
"And who else?"
"Isn't he enough?"
"That doesn't suffice; you must have the presiding judge as a patron, or the lord chancellor, or at least the district commissioner. If you can only ensure the Emperor's favour, that doesn't go far. What can you say to our Emperor, except 'May it please his Majesty,' and that he is lampooned daily. Every day there come some such scurrilous pamphlets to my notice."
"The Kaiser believes in unlimited freedom of opinion."
"Hang freedom of opinion! If I were Emperor, and anyone printed such things about me, I would take my axe and play such a tune on the writer's head with it, that he would not ask for a second one. And then if the Hungarians see that the Austrians dare thus to insult the Kaiser, what liberties will the Hungarian not allow himself?"