"This shanty has for a long time disfigured the market-place. In vain has the town-council negotiated with and sued your family in order to have the house pulled down." "And we have not surrendered it. Quite right. A genuine nobleman never sells property which he has purchased with his blood. It belongs to me, and within my four walls neither Prince nor Diet has the right to command. No, nor you either, my Lord-General." "My good lady, I never asked you to give me this venerable ruin for nothing. I offered you ten thousand florins for it. For that sum I could have bought up the whole gipsy quarter, though there is no such dilapidated house there as yours." "Keep your money, sir. I'll not give up my house. My seven-and-seventieth ancestor bought it two centuries ago, and therefore I'll not barter it away. In it I was born; in it died my father and my mother. If it offends your Excellency's eye to look down upon my beggarly house from your splendid mansion, pray look the other way; but at least do not grudge me the poor pleasure of spending the remainder of my days in the room where my poor husband breathed his last sigh; and let me tell you, sir, that I wouldn't take a palace in exchange for it." The widow's sobs at the recollection of her deceased husband here enabled Banfi to put a word in, and he replied with passionate vehemence-- "What I have said shall be done. The masons are already on their way to pull down the house. The ten thousand florins you can have on application to the town-council." "I don't want them. Throw them to your dogs," cried the woman furiously. "Am I a peasant that you turn me thus out of my property? Whoever dares to step across my threshold shall be driven out with a broomstick like a cur. I have appealed to the Prince and to the Estates, and there you have the sealed mandate in which the Diet forbids all and sundry to invade my property. I'll nail it upon the gate,--'tis engrossed in a good, legible hand,--and then I'll see who dares to break into my house." "And I tell you that to-morrow your house will be razed to the ground, even if it be surrounded by armalists, and then the Diet may build you a new one if it is so disposed." And with that Banfi turned away in high dudgeon, and almost ran into Nalaczi. The two men greeted each other with constrained politeness; and while Dame Saint Pauli went off cursing, Nalaczi, after drawing a long breath, began in the sweetest of tones-- "His Highness the Prince desires to bring a very unpleasant matter to the notice of your Excellency." "I am all attention." "The Turk has thrice this year extorted gifts from us under various pretexts." "You ought not to give them to him." "If we don't he will force upon us as Prince the refugee Nicholas Zolyomi, now under the protection of the Porte." "Let him come! We will kick him out again."