The Chamberlain, guessing whither things were tending, tapped his golden snuffbox, and asked for the floor.
"You deserve praise, my neighbour Count," he said, "for caring for your interests even at dinner time, not living thoughtlessly from day to day as do fashionable young fellows of your years. I wish and hope to end the trial in my Chamberlain's court by a reconciliation; hitherto the only difficulty has been over the improvements. I have formed a project of exchange, to make up for the improvements with land, in the following fashion."
Here he began to develop in due order, as he always did, a plan for the exchange that was to take place. He was already in the middle of the subject, when an unexpected movement started at the end of the table; some were pointing at something that they had noticed, and others were looking in the same direction, until finally all heads, like ears of grain bent down by a wind behind them, were turned away from the Chamberlain, to the corner.
From the corner, where hung the portrait of the late Pantler, the last of the Horeszko family, from a little door concealed between the pillars, had quietly come forth a form like a phantom. It was Gerwazy; they recognised him by his stature, by his face, and by the little silvery Half-Goats on his yellow coat. He walked straight as a post, silent and grim, without taking off his hat, without even inclining his head; in his hand he held a glittering key, like a dagger; he opened a case and began to turn something in it.
In two corners of the hall, against pillars, stood two musical clocks in locked cases; the queer old fellows,
