xalting the merits of his Sanguszko
gun, the other those of his Sagalas musket from Balabanowka.

"Neighbour Judge," pronounced the Chamberlain at last, "the servant of God
has rightfully won the first reward; but it is not easy to decide who is
the next to him, for all seem to me to have equal merits, all to be equal
in skill, adroitness, and courage. Fortune, however, has this day
distinguished two by the danger in which they were; two were nearest to
the bear's claws, Thaddeus and the Count; to them the skin belongs.
Thaddeus will yield, I am sure, as the younger, and as the kinsman of our
host; hence Your Honour the Count will receive the _spolia opima_.94 Let
this trophy adorn your hunting chamber, let it be a reminder of to-day's
sport, a symbol of fortune in the chase, a spur to future glory."

He concluded gaily, thinking that he had soothed the Count, and did not
know how grievously he had stabbed his heart. For at the mention of his
hunting chamber the Count involuntarily raised his eyes; and those horns
of stags, those branching antlers like a forest of laurels, sown by the
hands of the fathers to form crowns for the sons, those pillars adorned
with rows of portraits, that coat of arms shining in the vaulting, the old
Half-Goat, spoke to him from all sides with voices of the past. He awoke
from his musings, and remembered where he was and whose guest; he, the
heir of the Horeszkos, was a guest within his own threshold, was feasting
with the Soplicas, his immemorial foes! And moreover the jealousy that he
felt for Thaddeus incensed the Count all the more powerfully against the
Soplicas. So he said with a bitter laugh:--

"My little house is too small; in it there is no worthy place for so
magnificent a gift: let the bear rather abide amid these horned trophies
until the Judge deign to yield it to me together with the castle."

The Chamberlain, guessing whither things were tending, tapped his golden
snuffbox, and asked for the floor.

"You deserve praise, my neighbour Count," he said, "for caring for your
interests even at dinner time, not living thoughtlessly from day to day as
do fashionable young fellows of your years. I wish and hope to end the
trial in my Chamberlain's court by a reconciliation; hitherto the only
difficulty has been over the improvements. I have formed a project of
exchange, to make up for the improvements with land, in the following
fashion."

Here he began to develop in due order, a