IN WHICH WE BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH THE JUDICIAL BODY OF BARANIA-GLOVA AND ITS CHIEF REPRESENTATIVES. Next morning there was a session of the communal court. Members from the whole place were assembled, with the exception of the lords, or nobles. Though a few nobles in the district were members, those few, not wishing to differ from their peers, adhered to the policy known in England as non-intervention, a policy so much lauded by that renowned statesman John Bright. This abstention did not exclude, however, the direct influence of the "intelligence" on the fate of the commune. For if any man of the "intelligence" had a case, he invited Pan Zolzik to his house on the eve of the session of the court, vodka was brought to the room of the representative of the "intelligence," and cigars were given; after that the affair was discussed easily, then followed dinner, to which Pan Zolzik was invited with the cordial words, "Well, sit down, Pan Zolzik, sit down!" Pan Zolzik sat down; and next day he said carelessly to the mayor, "Yesterday I dined with the Zarembas, the Skorabevskis, or the Dovbors. Hm! There is a daughter in the house; we understand what that means!" During dinner Pan Zolzik tried to maintain good manners, to eat of various problematical dishes in the way that he saw others eat of them, and tried, moreover, not to show that that intimacy with the mansion gave him too much pleasure. He was a man filled with tact, who knew how to conduct himself everywhere; therefore, not only did he not lose courage on such occasions, but he pushed himself into the conversation, mentioning meanwhile this "honorable commissioner" or that "excellent chief," with whom yesterday, or some other day, he had played a small game at a copeck a point. In one word, he endeavored to show that he was on a footing of close intimacy with the first powers in the district. He noticed, it is true, that during his narratives the company looked somehow strangely into their plates; but he judged that that was the fashion. After dinner it astonished him also more than once, that the noble, without waiting for him to say farewell, clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Well, be in good health, Pan Zolzik;" but again he judged that that was the way in good society. Then, while pressing the host's hand in farewell, he felt in it something that rustled; he bent his fingers, and, pressing the noble's palm, he gathered to himself that something "that rustled," not forgetting to add, however, "Oh, my benefactor! there is no need of this between us. As to your case, you may be at rest, my benefactor."