Money had in this instance, as usual, exercised its charm, and nothing more was necessary than to outbid the terms agreed on with the duke.  A few thousand dollars more offered, and double purchase-money, had secured the secret of porcelain-making to Gotzkowsky, and bound the inventor down in Berlin for life.[1]

The arrangements necessary for the first attempts were made in one of the out-buildings of his house, and the articles offered to the king were the first-fruits of his factory.  The king listened to him with intense interest, and when Gotzkowsky had finished, he nodded to him with a smile.

“The Marquis d’Argens is right.  I wish myself I had many such citizens as you are.  It would be a fine thing to be a king if all one’s subjects were true men, and made it worth one’s while to be to them a kind father and lord.  You have fulfilled a favorite wish of mine; and let me tell you, I do not think you will call the porcelain factory yours long.  I think it will soon be a royal factory.”

“I founded it for your majesty.”

“Good, good! you have given me a pleasure, I will give you one in return.  Ask some favor for yourself.  You are silent.  Do you know of nothing to ask for?”

“Oh, yes, indeed,” said Gotzkowsky, ardently, “I have a great favor to ask—­have pity on the poor inhabitants of this town!”

The king frowned and pressed his lips angrily together.  “Do you know that I have generally forbidden any one to trouble me with these Leipsic jeremiades?”

“I know it, sire.”

The king looked at him with astonishment.  “And yet you do it?”

“Yes, sire, I do it because I relied on the kind, noble heart of my king, and because humanity bade me not to fear your majesty’s anger, when it became a question of mercy to the oppressed.”

“And for this reason you wanted to bribe me with your bits of porcelain.  Oh, you are a reckoner, but this time you have reckoned without your host.  No pity for these obstinate Leipsigers.  They must pay the eleven hundred thousand dollars, or—­”

“Or what?” asked Gotzkowsky, as he hesitated.

The king looked angrily at him.  “You are very bold,” said he, “to interrupt me.  The Leipsigers must pay, for I need the money for my soldiers, and they are rich; they are able to pay!”

“They are not able to pay, sire!  They are as little able to pay as Berlin is if Russia insists upon her demands, and her magnanimous king does not come to her assistance.  But your majesty certainly does not wish that the world and history shall say that Russia acted with more forbearance and clemency toward Berlin than Prussia did toward Leipsic?  To be sure, the Russians carried off the Jewish elders into captivity because they could not pay, but then they treated these poor victims of their avarice like human beings.  They did not make them sleep on rotten straw; they did not let them starve, and die of misery and filth; they did not have them scourged and tortured until they wet with their tears the bit of bread thrown to them.”