"For the future! ... I understand!" said the Chancellor, sending out a long cloud of cigar-smoke. "And in what way do you suggest that I should help you?"
He put the question so bluntly that P. C. Breagh, in the effort to answer, floundered and boggled. He had suddenly realized his own insect-like insignificance in the eyes that were so intolerably heavy in their regard. His own eyes sank to the neat, small, polished boots of the big man. who stood smoking upon the white lioness-skin. To the wearer of those boots he was merely a beetle who could be crushed by them. The slight ironical smile that altered the curve of the mustache said as much. But the Minister's tone was suave as he went on:
"I think I have grasped the mainspring of your reasoning. To begin with, you desire to accompany one of our armies on the campaign?"
"Yes—sir! Your Excellency, I should say!"
A lambent light of humor danced in the blue eyes that were bent on him. The faint ironic smile broadened into a laugh. The Chancellor took his cigar from his mouth, knocked off the ash, and said quite pleasantly:
"And deducting from this premise, I conjecture that—because I have been privileged to save you from being trampled to death under the feet of the mob upon the Linden, you naturally take it for granted that I would further your ambitions. Gratitude, one of your English authors has admirably defined as a lively sense of favors to come...."
P. C. Breagh, who had been for some time shrinking in his own estimation, suddenly saw himself in a newer, meaner light. His torturer went on in mellifluous English:
"I do not know that any classical German author has defined gratitude quite so cleverly. But we in Pomerania have a folk-story which may be new to you." He drew sharply at his cigar, then laid it glowing on the edge of the stove:
"You speak German quite passably, so I will tell it in our Pomeranian dialect. If this is not done, the dialogue lacks salt. Thus it goes: Wedig Knips, a peasant of Dalow, whose horses wanted watering, went one winter's day to break the ice that covered the drinking-hole.... 'Bless us! what have we here?' says he, when he finds a kerl called Peders, frozen in the ice, with his head down and his heels up. To make a long story short, he chops out Peders, takes him home, and sets him up to thaw before the fire.... 'Now, neighbor,' says he, 'go about your business!'—'How can I when my jerkin is wet and my breeches are full of muddy water?'—Says Wedig: 'Poor devil! I will give you my Sunday trows!'—'And a jerkin too, for you saved my life, you must remember!' ... Wedig scratches his head, but hands over a jerkin with the rest. 'Come, now be off!' says he. '"Off," with my under-pants and shirt all sopping! Do you want to kill me—now that you have saved my life?'—So Wedig pulls a wry face, but hands over the underclothes.... 'Put these on and be off, we are busy people in this house!' 'What,' says Peders, 'without paying me the value of the good duds spoiled in your stinking horsepond?'—'Must I pay?' ... 'Certainly, you have saved my life! Nobody asked you!—I had thrown myself in because I was tired of living. Now it is your bounden duty to make things tolerable for me!'—'How make things tolerable?'—'To begin with, I want a cottage to live in, and a plot of kail-ground to it, and a wee pickle furniture.'—'But I have only this cottage, and the bits of sticks you see!'—'Well, give me them! Didn't you save my life?' ... Wedig gets confused, sees no way out of it. 'The devil!' says he, 'this is a nice affair! However, take them, man!'—'I will take them,' says Peders, 'but you must give me the cart and plow, the cow and the two horses?'—'Himmelkreuzbombenelement! Have I got to give you all that because I saved your life?'—'Ay, undoubtedly!—and you must let me have your wife into the bargain. It's your bounden duty——' 'I know! because I saved your life! Shan't make such a mistake next time, you may be sure of that!'—'No, but you did, so to grumble is no use.'—'Thunder! my old girl will make a terrible squawking.'—'Not when you have explained how you saved my life!' ... Wedig scratches his head, rubs his chin, gets a bright idea.... 'Help me to explain to the wife, do you agree?'—'Ay, of course! What is it you want me to say to her?'—'Oh! say nothing. Only let me show her exactly how I got you out of the water-hole.'—'Willingly!'—'But to do that I must put you back just a minute!'—'Put me back?'—'Only for a minute.' 'Promise when I cry "Genug!" you'll take me out directly!'—'All right! Come along!' So Wedig takes Peders by the legs and sticks him back where he found him, driving his head well down into the mud at the bottom of the pond.... So—he never cried 'Genug!' and Wedig left him there....
The hard blue eyes that had been all alight with laughter, the heavily molded face that had unexpectedly proved itself capable of comic changes, the voice that, as the droll dialogue proceeded, had conveyed with slight, admirably restrained mimicry the complacent assurance of the knave and the dull bewilderment of the victim, changed, became the Minister's again. He said, in his smoothest tones: