Part 30 (2/2)

Commissioner:--but to Marton, to old Marton? Has old Marton ever let out anything? Old Marton knows much that would be worth his while to tell tales about: have you ever heard of old Marton being a gossip? Has old Marton ever told tales against you or anyone else? And if I could help you in any way?”

[Footnote 47: The name given to Desiderius' professor (”bread devourer”).]

There was a world of frank good-heartedness in these reproaches; besides I had to catch after the first straw to find a way of escape.

”Well, and what did my old colleague say?--You know the reason I call him 'colleague,' is that my hair always acts as if it were a wig, while his wig always acts as it if were hair.”

”He said,” I answered tremblingly, hanging on to his arm, ”he knew more than I. Lorand has not merely run away, but has stolen my uncle's wife.”

At these words Marton commenced to roar with laughter. He pressed his hands upon his stomach and just roared, then turned round, as if he wished to give the further end of the street a taste of his laughter; then he remarked that it was a splendid joke, at which remark I was sufficiently scandalized.

”And then he said--that Lorand had stolen his money.”

At this Marton straightened himself and raised his head very seriously.

”That is bad. That is 'a mill,' as Father Fromm would say. Well, and what do you think of it, sir?”

”I think, it cannot be true; and I want to find my brother, no matter what has become of him.

”And when you have found him?”

”Then, if that woman is holding him by one hand, I shall seize the other and we shall see which of us will be the stronger.”

Marton gave me a sound slap on the back, saying ”Teufelskerl.[48] What are you thinking of?--would other children mind, if a beautiful woman ran away with their brother? But this one wishes to stand between them.

Excellent. Well, shall we look for Master Lorand? How will you begin?”

[Footnote 48: Devil's fellow: _i. e._, devil of a fellow.]

”I don't know.”

”Let me see; what have you learned at school? What can you do, if you are suddenly thrown back on your own resources? Which way will you start? Right or left: will you cry in the street, 'Who has seen my brother?'”

Indeed I did not know how to begin.

”Well,--you shall see that you can at times make use of that old fellow Marton. Trust yourself to me. Listen to me now, as if I were Mr.

Brodfresser. If two of them ran away together, surely they must have taken a carriage. The carriage was a fiacre. Madame has always the same coachman, number 7. I know him well. So first of all we must find Moczli: that is coachman No. 7. He lives in the Zuckermandel. It's a cursed long way, but that's all the better, for by the time we get to his house we shall be all the surer to find him at home.”

”If he was the one who took them.”

”Don't play the fool now, sir studiosus. I know what cab-horses are.

They could not take anyone as far as the border; at most as far as some wayside inn, where speedy country horses can be found: there the runaways are waiting while the fiacre is returning.”

In astonishment I asked what made him surmise all this: when it seemed to me that with speedy country horses they might already be far beyond the frontier.

”Sir Lieutenant-Governor,” was Marton's hasty reproof; ”How could you have such ideas? You expect to become Lieutenant-Governor some day, yet you don't know that he who wishes to pa.s.s the frontiers must be supplied with a pa.s.sport. No one can go without a pa.s.s from Pressburg to Vienna; Madame has quite surely despatched Moczli back to bring to her the gentleman with whose 'pa.s.s' they are to escape farther.”

<script>