stupid son of Ham!"78 cried Skoluba, "it is easier for you; you
peasants are as used to skinning as eels; but for us _men of birth_, us
gentlemen accustomed to golden liberty! Ah, brothers! Why, in old times a
gentleman on his garden patch----"

"Yes, yes," they all cried, "was a wojewoda's match."79

"To-day they even deny our gentle birth; they bid us hunt up papers and
prove it by documents."

"That's nothing for such as you!" shouted Juraha. "Your precious ancestors
were peasants who obtained nobility, but I am of princes' blood! To ask me
for a patent, showing when I became a nobleman! Only God remembers that!
Let the Muscovite go to the forest and ask the oak grove who gave it a
patent to grow above all the shrubs!"

"Prince!" said Zagiel. "Go tell that to some one else! You will find no
end of princes' coronets in this district."

"You have a cross in your coat of arms," shouted Podhajski; "that is a
covert allusion to the fact that a baptised Jew was a member of your
line."

"That is false!" interrupted Birbarz; "now I spring from the blood of
Tatar counts, and yet my coat bears crosses above a ship."

"The white rose of five petals," cried Mickiewicz, "with a cap in a golden
field: it is a princely coat; Stryjkowski writes frequently of it."80

After this a mighty hubbub arose all over the room. The Bernardine had
recourse to his snuffbox; he offered a pinch to each of the orators in
turn, and the wrangling immediately subsided: each accepted for courtesy's
sake, and sneezed several times. The Bernardine, taking advantage of the
intermission, continued:--

"Ah! this tobacco has made great men sneeze! Will you believe me that four
times General Dombrowski has taken a pinch from this snuffbox?"

"Dombrowski!" they shouted.

"Yes, yes, he, the general. I was in the camp when he was recapturing
Dantzic from the Germans.81 He had something to write; and, fearing that
he might go to sleep, he took a pinch, sneezed, and twice patted me on the
back. 'Father Robak,' he said, 'Father Bernardine, perhaps we shall see
each other in Lithuania before the year is over. Tell the Lithuanians to
receive me with Czenstochowa tobacco; I take none but that.' "

The Monk's speech aroused such amazement and such joy that the whole noisy
assembly was silent for a moment; then they repeated under their breath
the words, "Tobacco from Poland? Czenstochowa? Dombrowski? from the
Italian land?" until finally all at once, as i