As Agenor was about to enter his carriage the next minute, the magistrate said, "Will you do me a great favor, my dear count? Wiliszenski, the poet, whom perhaps you know by reputation, is to read us his latest verses quite _en famille_. As yet there are only five of us, for my wife always invites Judith, though the girl does not seem to care for the poet, preferring to spend the evening alone with the albums, in the next room. May we hope to see you?" He looked inquiringly into the count's face. The contemptuous glance which he encountered did not disturb him. In fact, he smiled. The count dropped his eyes. There he stood, his hand on the carriage door, a picture of indecision. "I regret," he said, finally, "I am engaged for tomorrow evening." "What a pity!" exclaimed Wroblewski. The carriage rolled away; he watched it smilingly, and the same smile was on his lips when he went to his wife, and said, "Six guests to-morrow evening." CHAPTER III. Thaddeus von Wiliszenski was, with some exceptions, a Polish Walter von der Vogelweide. He, too, gained less by his learning than by his genius; he, too, wandered from castle to castle, exhorting the nobles to justice--rejoicing when he received a new coat or negotiated a loan, for I doubt if any one ever borrowed so much. Like Walter, he was a political poet, though not a one-sided one, like the German singer. He read stirring war-songs against Austria to the nobles, and then, by order of the magistracy, composed odes for the emperor's birthday. For the burghers he wrote lampoons against the nobles; for the nobles, skits against the _bourgeoisie_. He, too, belonged to the later nobility, for though a "von" was under his poems and a coat-of-arms on his writing-paper, it was difficult to trace his genealogy. Some, indeed, said he was the son of a shoemaker, and had failed in the gymnasium; others, that he had been a barber's apprentice. It was equally difficult to ascertain his birthplace. Several provinces strove about declining the honor. He was in the habit of saying he was the son of that neighborhood in which he happened to be collecting subscriptions, just at the time, for his poems. If the book had ever appeared, a large edition would have been required, for one could scarcely count the numbers from whom he had collected its price of three gulden. But, like the Minnesänger, he contented himself with leaving it oral. Uninvited, and suddenly as if dropped from the skies, he would appear at the farm-houses. Sometimes he was kicked out after three, sometimes after eight days' sojourn, for he never departed of his own volition. But as one cannot live by poetry alone, he also acted as mediator when bribery or some equally dirty business was on hand, which accounted for his friendship with Von Wroblewski.