‘Never mind; I’m the lawyer engaged in his cause before the courts. He said I was to wait if he wasn’t in.’
But the servant began to get alarmed at having to disobey orders so many times, and he thought he would make a stand.
‘I’m very sorry,’ he said, ‘but master said I wasn’t to show anyone in.’
‘What! when I’ve come here with my two clerks, on particular business of the greatest importance to your master, do you suppose I’m going away again like that, fellow?’
The servant was so amazed by his imperative manner that he let him in, too.
Twenty-one o’clock came at last, and with it Count Lattanzio. Having given orders that no one should be let in, of course he expected to find no one. What was his astonishment, therefore, when, as he opened the drawing-room door, a loud cry of ‘Long live Count Lattanzio!’[4] uttered by several voices, met his ear.
The shoemaker was the bridegroom, the tailor the best man, the lawyer and his two clerks were the notary and his witnesses. The marriage articles had been duly drawn up and signed, and as the parties were of age there was no rescinding the contract.
Count Lattanzio sent away the servant for not attending to orders; but that made no difference—the deed was done.
[1] This story, again, is perhaps more curious for the sake of the repetition of the name of Lattanzio, in so different a story as that at p. 155, than for its contents. There is doubtless a reason why this name should come into this sort of use as with that of ‘Cajusse,’ but I have not as yet been able to meet with it. [↑]