"The Old Acquaintance"

The mansion's gold-and-silver-trimmed gates were nothing unusual, but these looked far too flimsy. The gold and silver paint seemed off, too, as though someone had simply brushed gold dust over a wooden gate.

Put simply, it had the air of someone trying to look grand without the means to back it up. The fellow standing at the entrance, dressed like an ancient Turk, was probably Wichli Jasiński.

Franz had little fondness for the attire of steppe aristocrats. A Central Asian-style robe paired with an oddly shaped felt hat made its wearer look bulky and fat.

The felt hat was ill-fitting because it was far too tall for a hat. Stranger still, unlike the cylindrical bearskin hats popular in Western Europe, it only jutted out at the front.

Worse, that protruding part had a split down the middle, making the whole hat look as though the wearer had a pair of rabbit ears on his head.

A bearskin hat was the kind worn by the modern British Royal Guard, though the style had first become popular in the French army.

Normally, this traditional Polish outfit would also be worn with a saber to show off its owner's military prowess, but Colonel Bordeaux had confiscated them all.

After all, Polish nobles could not enjoy the same privileges as Magyar nobles, though the latter's traditional attire was a little more ornate than the former's.

The people accompanying the Polish noble looked just as out of place. The man behind him, who seemed to be his butler, wore distinctly British clothes: a top hat, tie, and tailcoat. All he was missing was a cane.

What Franz didn't know was that Colonel Bordeaux had temporarily confiscated the cane as well, since it had a metal fitting.

The remaining servants and guards all had shifty eyes,