Here the chair remarked with great seriousness: "Beg pardon, your highness: but there are authentic records of similar cases. In Hungary, the wife of a Count Miczbanus gave birth at one time to seven living sons, all of whom lived to grow up."
"She certainly took some of the prisoner's hen pills," laughingly responded his highness.
The prisoner continued:
Naturally mistakes of this sort roused the animosity of the patients; but, none were so enraged as was the burgomaster. His case, indeed, capped the climax! I had two miraculous cures: one would cause to disappear from the human nose pimples, warts and all other disfiguring excrescences; the other would transform silver into gold.
The burgomaster possessed a large silver snuff-box and an exceedingly prominent and highly-colored nose which was covered with unsightly pimples. He sent for me in secret and bade me test the efficacy of the two miracle-cures on his snuff-box and on his nose.
Like some of the other remedies, these two had also changed places, in consequence of which, the burgomaster's nose turned to gold, while the snuff-box vanished as if from the face of the earth.
This cure so amused the prince he could hardly gasp:
"Enough—enough!—no more today! We will hear the rest tomorrow—I am faint with laughing."
The court adjourned until the following day, when the prisoner resumed his confession:
As might be expected, this last mistake of mine caused a dispute to arise. The burgomaster, however, was not so angry because his nose had changed to gold; but nothing would console him for the loss of his snuff-box. He actually accused me of stealing it!