William Tell Told Again by P. G. Wodehouse (web ebook reader .txt) 📗
- Author: P. G. Wodehouse
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Gessler sat back again with an ugly smile.
"Oh," he said--"oh, indeed! You aren't, aren't you! Desire the Lord High Executioner to step this way," he added to a soldier who stood beside him.
The Lord High Executioner entered the presence. He was a kind-looking old gentleman with white hair, and he wore a beautiful black robe, tastefully decorated with death's-heads.
"Your Excellency sent for me?" he said.
"Just so," replied Gessler. "This gentleman here"--he pointed to Arnold of Melchthal--"says he does not like taxes, and that he isn't going to put up with them any longer."
"Tut-tut!" murmured the executioner.
"See what you can do for him."
"Certainly, your Excellency. Robert," he cried, "is the oil on the boil?"
"Just this minute boiled over," replied a voice from the other side of the door.
"Then bring it in, and mind you don't spill any."
Enter Robert, in a suit of armour and a black mask, carrying a large caldron, from which the steam rose in great clouds.
"Now, sir, if you please," said the executioner politely to Arnold of Melchthal.
Arnold looked at the caldron.
"Why, it's hot," he said.
"Warmish," admitted the executioner.
"It's against the law to threaten a man with hot oil."
"You may bring an action against me," said the executioner. "Now, sir, if you please. We are wasting time. The forefinger of your left hand, if I may trouble you. Thank you. I am obliged."
He took Arnold's left hand, and dipped the tip of the first finger into the oil.
"Ow!" cried Arnold, jumping.
"Don't let him see he's hurting you," whispered Werner Stauffacher. "Pretend you don't notice it."
Gessler leaned forward again.
"Have your views on taxes changed at all?" he asked. "Do you see my point of view more clearly now?"
Arnold admitted that he thought that, after all, there might be something to be said for it.
"That's right," said the Governor. "And the tax on sheep? You don't object to that?"
"No."
"And the tax on cows?"
"I like it."
"And those on bread, and buns, and lemonade?"
"I enjoy them."
"Excellent. In fact, you're quite contented?"
"Quite."
"And you think the rest of the people are?"
"Oh, quite, quite!"
"And do you think the same?" he asked of Walter and Werner.
"Oh yes, your Excellency!" they cried.
"Then that's all right," said Gessler. "I was sure you would be sensible about it. Now, if you will kindly place in the tambourine which the gentleman on my left is presenting to you a mere trifle to compensate us for our trouble in giving you an audience, and if you" (to Arnold of Melchthal) "will contribute an additional trifle for use of the Imperial boiling oil, I think we shall all be satisfied. You've done it? That's right. Good-bye, and mind the step as you go out."
And, as he finished this speech, the three spokesmen of the people of Switzerland were shown out of the Hall of Audience.
Chapter IIThey were met in the street outside by a large body of their fellow-citizens, who had accompanied them to the Palace, and who had been spending the time since their departure in listening by turns at the keyhole of the front-door. But as the Hall of Audience was at the other side of the Palace, and cut off from the front-door by two other doors, a flight of stairs, and a long passage, they had not heard very much of what had gone on inside, and they surrounded the three spokesmen as they came out, and questioned them eagerly.
"Has he taken off the tax on jam?" asked Ulric the smith.
"What is he going to do about the tax on mixed biscuits?" shouted Klaus von der Flue, who was a chimney-sweep of the town and loved mixed biscuits.
"Never mind about tea and mixed biscuits!" cried his neighbour, Meier of Sarnen. "What I want to know is whether we shall have to pay for keeping sheep any more."
"What did the Governor say?" asked Jost Weiler, a practical man, who liked to go straight to the point.
The three spokesmen looked at one another a little doubtfully.
"We-e-ll," said Werner Stauffacher at last, "as a matter of fact, he didn't actually say very much. It was more what he did, if you understand me, than what he said."
"I should describe His Excellency the Governor," said Walter F�rst, "as a man who has got a way with him--a man who has got all sorts of arguments at his finger-tips."
At the mention of finger-tips, Arnold of Melchthal uttered a sharp howl.
"In short," continued Walter, "after a few minutes' very interesting conversation he made us see that it really wouldn't do, and that we must go on paying the taxes as before."
There was a dead silence for several minutes, while everybody looked at everybody else in dismay.
The silence was broken by Arnold of Sewa. Arnold of Sewa had been disappointed at not being chosen as one of the three spokesmen, and he thought that if he had been so chosen all this trouble would not have occurred.
"The fact is," he said bitterly, "that you three have failed to do what you were sent to do. I mention no names--far from it--but I don't mind saying that there are some people in this town who would have given a better account of themselves. What you want in little matters of this sort is, if I may say so, tact. Tact; that's what you want. Of course, if you will go rushing into the Governor's presence--"
"But we didn't rush," said Walter F�rst.
"--Shouting out that you want the taxes abolished--"
"But we didn't shout," said Walter F�rst.
"I really cannot speak if I am to be constantly interrupted," said Arnold of Sewa severely. "What I say is, that
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