Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/389

 Bartos was glad that he had hit upon something which no one else had hit upon before, and that the mayor had said in so many words, that his (Bartos) more elaborate design eluded his penetration.

“It is as follows,” explained Bartos. “Old Loyka will not return to his estate. Of that you are convinced?”

“Of that I am convinced,” repeated the mayor.”

“That is to say, so long as Joseph is on the farm,” continued Bartos.

“So long as Joseph is there?” said the mayor, interrogatively, as though he again failed to grasp the scheme of the gravedigger.

“Then my idea is this. Might not old Loyka return to his farmstead if Joseph was there no more.”

“If he was not there? That pleases me. That might be.”

“And if everything else there was re-arranged just as it was wont to be in times gone by—Loyka to command the servants; in the chambers by the coach-house mirth to reign as in the days of old; Loyka to dwell in the farmhouse and be hospodar, both in name and reality; Frank, voluntarily, to be subservient to his wishes, whereby, we should make a good hospodar of Frank. Do you not think that in this manner old Loyka might yet recover his health?”

This proposal pleased the mayor.

“If he did not recover, what help? We should have done what we could. At all events Frank