"I abstain from making such a defence," answered Ráby, "and only ask to be confronted with my accuser."
The first witness for the prosecution stepped forward in the person of the coachman, whose appearance betokened him to be a rogue of the first water, and obviously ready to swear to anything, provided he were well paid for it.
According to the customary formula, he was questioned as to his antecedents, and owned up unconcernedly to having himself been nine times in prison.
When asked if he recognised in Ráby the robber who had waylaid the Jew Rotheisel, he answered promptly:
"Recognise him again, I should just think so! There can be no question of their not being one and the same. Only then he happened to be wearing a black wig, and a curly moustache, with a peasant's cloak over his shoulder. But I knew it was Mr. Ráby directly I heard his voice."
Ráby, addressing the court, now spoke in Latin, knowing that the peasants were ignorant of that language,
"I protest against the evidence of this witness; I know him for the coachman who drove the official who came to bribe me. This witness therefore is not impartial."
The prosecutor replied that this could not be proven, but Ráby interrupted him whilst he turned to the witness and said to him in Magyar,
"Pray how could you have recognised my voice since I have never spoken to you in all my life?"
"Ay, does not the worshipful gentleman remember that I drove Mr. Paprika into his courtyard in the new coach and four. The gentleman talked so loudly then, that the deafest man must have heard him."