“I do not wonder that this fair city lies desolate if her prosperity depends upon her merchants, and if you are chief among them; yet I cannot forget that you risked life and liberty on my behalf, though now you will not venture a miserable thousand thalers on my word of honor.”
“On your behalf? What do you mean?”
“I mean, Herr Goebel, that I am Prince Roland, only son of the Emperor, and that you placed your neck in jeopardy to elevate me to the throne.”
II. THE BARGAIN IS STRUCK
Every epoch seems to have possessed a two-word phrase that contained, as it were, the condensed wisdom of the age, and was universally believed by the people. For instance, the aphorism “Know thyself” rose to popularity when cultured minds turned towards science. In the period to which this recital belongs the adage “Blood tells” enjoyed universal acceptance. It was, in fact, that erroneous statement “The King can do no wrong” done up into tabloid form. From it, too, sprang that double-worded maxim of the days of chivalry, “Noblesse oblige.”
In our own time, the two-worded phrase is “Money talks,” and if diligent inquirers probe deeply into the matter, they will find that the aspirations of the people always correspond with reasonable accuracy to the meaning of the phrase then in use. Nothing could be more excellent, for instance, than the proverb “Money talks” as representing two commercial countries like America and England. In that short sentence is packed the essence of many other wise and drastic sayings, as, for instance, “The devil take the hindmost;” for, of course, if money talks, then the man without it must remain silent, and his place is at the tail of the procession, where the devil prowls about like a Cossack at the rear of Napoleon’s army.
Confronting each other in that ancient house on the Fahrgasse, we witness, then, the personification of the two phrases, ancient and modern: blood represented by the standing lad, and money by the seated merchant.
“I am Prince Roland, only son of the Emperor,” the young man had said, and he saw at once by the expression on the face of his host that, could he be convinced of the truth of the assertion, the thousand thalers that the Prince had demanded would be his on the instant.