"Here is your money. Get you
gone, and tell your neighbors there is prompt payment for all the
provender they can bring in."
The man calmed down as if a bucket of water had been thrown on him. He
counted the payment with miserly care, testing each coin between his
teeth, then mounted his cart without a word of thanks, and, to the
disappointment of the gathering mob, drove away. Roland, seething with
anger, walked directly to the house of Herr Goebel, and found that
placid old burgher seated at his table.
"Ten thousand curses on your indolence!" he cried. "Where are your
committee, and the emissaries empowered to carry out this scheme of
relief I have ordered?"
"Committee? Emissaries?" cried the astonished man. "There has been no
time!"
"Time, you thick-headed fool! I'll time you by hanging you to your own
front door. There has been time for me to send my men out into the
country; time for a farmer to come in with a cartload of produce, and be
robbed here under your very nose! Maledictions on you, you sit here,
well fed, and cry there is no time! If I had not paid the yeoman he
would have gone back into the country crying we were all thieves here in
Frankfort.
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