Moreover, was it not a Christian duty to let the grandfather know as soon as possible what extraordinary things his granddaughter was turning over in her noddle?
And finally--there was money in it!--good solid cash! If old Lapussa did not choose to pay a price for it, and a liberal price too, he should be told nothing at all and Margari would show the old miser that he had a man of character to deal with.

For after all poor Margari had to live, and this was worth as much as a thousand florins to him or its equivalent anyhow.

Surely Miss Henrietta could not be so unreasonable as to expect poor Margari to chuck such a piece of good fortune out of the window, especially as she had given him nothing herself.
At that moment someone knocked at the door and enquired whether Mr.
Margari was there.
Margari was so frightened that he bawled out: "No, I am not!"-- so of course he was obliged to open the door, but he concealed the packet of letters in his pocket first.
It was the lacquey who came to ask whether Mr.Margari was aware that it was past seven o'clock; he must come and read to the old gentleman.
Margari could not endure to hear the domestics speaking to him familiarly.
"Seven o'clock! What do you mean ?" said he.

"Am I bound to know when it is seven o'clock?
Am I a clockmaker or a bell-ringer?
If your master wants me to know what a clock it is, let him send me, not a lacquey, but a gold repeater watch!" And salving his wounded dignity with these and similar effusions, Margari trotted alongside the lacquey to the room of Mr.Demetrius, to whom he immediately notified the change in the situation by sinking down into a soft and cosey arm-chair instead of sitting down on the edge of the hard leather-chair, expressly provided for him.
Demetrius measured him from head to foot with his terrible eagle eyes and observed in an even more stridently moral voice than usual: "Well, Margari, when are we going to have our novel reading ?" "We will have our reading presently, but it won't be a novel to-day." "What do you mean, sir ?" "I humbly beg to remind your honour that you were pleased to commission me to lay hands upon certain Latin exercises of your grandson Koloman.

I humbly beg to inform you that they are now in my possession." "Oh!" said old Lapussa, with a forced assumption of _sang froid_, "you may give them to me to-morrow, I will look them through." "Crying your honour's pardon, they are in Latin." "Well, I can get someone to look them through for me." "I beg humbly to represent that it would not be well to put them into anybody's hands, for strange things are contained therein." "What!" cried the old man angrily, "you don't mean to say _you_ have looked into them ?" "Yes, I have read them all through." "I did not tell you to do that." "No, but you were graciously pleased _not_ to forbid me to do so.