“Now, I know,” says he, in his piping voice.
“What d’ye know?” asks the boatswain, who has little or no opinion of the master-tailor.
“As how the gentleman—the Count, I mean—and the other,—the Bandit with the Grey Beard,—that both of them are one and the same man.”
“Well, you calico-spoiler—you know that, do you? Well—I know that too, and all of us know it right enough; but you needn’t take another man’s share in the reading for all that. Go ahead, boy!”
The master-tailor is looked at with contempt from various quarters, and Jozef pursues his reading with a chapter describing how Count Matatskai comes home in a bad temper.
“The Count threw himself down on a couch adorned with costly velvet, relieve me of my riding-boots—thus he spoke to the grey-headed old servant Gabario who, brought him a silver goblet with sparkling wine saying, that this was his favourite wine from the great vineyard south of the castle but, the Count made a gesture of refusal with his left hand and said me liketh no wine Gabario avaunt and saddle—my horse!”
This was the end of the chapter, and Jozef took breath.
“It’s a capital thing,” said the boatswain, “when a man can have the things for the ordering in that way. What comes next, Jozef?”
The boatswain is beginning to feel sleepy, and would therefore like Jozef to tell him the end at once; but this Jozef is by no means inclined to do,—he goes ahead valiantly, and by degrees, though he does not observe it, his whole audience drops asleep. At last, when he has reached the closing scene, there is no one to listen to it but the master-tailor, who can scarcely keep his small grey eyes open.
“Just hear this, now!” says Jozef, who—though he has read the book through twice before—is as enthusiastic over this passage as the first time. “Now you must listen! Now the Count is sitting up alone in the rocks, in a ... cavern, they call it, ... and now he is the Bandit with the Grey Beard; and the other robbers are sitting in the back of the cavern round a great big fire, and some of them are lying asleep, and the others are roasting great pieces of meat at the fire, and they’re drinking wine with it ... out of gold cups that they’ve stolen.... But the Bandit with the Grey Beard— ... he’s sitting all by himself, you see,—and now Krimhelia comes in—you know—the young lady he thinks so much of.”