"But pray don't on that account make them the highest personages in the land. Simple, ignorant men in responsible positions are far more dangerous to a state than open but enlightened foes. Reward them by all means, but only in proportion to their abilities." "I'll do so," replied the harassed Prince; and during the remainder of the interview he tried hard to uphold his conjugal supremacy, but Anna would not let the subject drop. "And Master John Szasy, what does he do here? for I saw him too." "The poor fellow is persecuted," returned Apafi, who began to find the joke a little tiresome. "Evil rumours are abroad about that man. People say of him--and they say it pretty loudly--that he has young Saxon girls abducted for him, and after sacrificing them to his brutal lusts, removes them out of the way by poison. The parents of the girls have indicted this man, and he fancies he will escape exposure by fawning upon you." Apafi sprang wrathfully from his seat. "If that be so, I will show Master Szasy the door; he shall find no shelter beneath my mantle." "And what brought that honest, tattered Szekler hither?" asked Anna, who had evidently made up her mind to know everything. "I like not his crafty face at all. The Szekler is always most dangerous when he puts on the garb of simplicity." The Prince was suddenly seized with a paroxysm of mirth, he could scarcely speak for laughing. "That was the representative of Olahfalva," said he. At the mention of this place even Anna could not forbear from smiling. "The good folks of Olahfalva," continued Apafi, still laughing, "who carry people to church in sheets and beat watches to death!" "I fear me the poor people are very much maligned. They are called simple, but methinks their ways are altogether crooked and crafty." "But is it not true then that they carry ladders horizontally through the woods?" "Yes; but why? You shall hear. Their Captain-General had forbidden them to waste the woods, but at the same time sent them out to pull down crows' nests; so to get at the nests they carried the ladders horizontally through the woods to have an excuse for hewing down every tree that stood in their way." "Well explained! But at least you will not deny that in hilly districts they never plough to the end of their fields for fear that if they go right to the margin the earth will tilt over with them." "They do that because the margin is of a rocky consistency which no ploughshare will penetrate." "Then what do you say of their custom of choosing to represent them at the Diet those amongst them upon whom their obsolete, short skin-jackets sit the best? I'll swear I saw the self-same jacket now worn by the Olahfalva deputy at the Diet of Klausenburg twelve years ago, only then it was on some one else's shoulders."