one time were erected
and peopled by Greek merchants. In the middle of the street stands a
church with a facade of marble and a splendid gilt tower, whose bells
are the most tuneful in the whole town. It is said that when those
bells were cast the Greeks threw, with both hands, silver coins into
the liquid metal.

Old Francis Csanta was now the last of the race. Once he had been a
jovial fellow, a careless, free liver, towards ladies a gallant
cavalier, among men a desperate gambler. With years he became silent,
moody, miserly, avoided the company of his fellow man or woman, and
was a hater of music and all pleasure. The more he indulged in
solitude the worse his peculiarities grew. So soon as one of his
former friends, or relations, or boon companions died, he bought the
house in which they had lived. By degrees the whole street belonged to
him; only one house remained, and that next door to his own. This had
been occupied by a connection of his who had left one daughter.
Strangely enough, she had not followed the general custom of celibacy,
but had married, and was the wife of a music-master, who enjoyed the
Magyar name of Belenyi. This pair had in due course a son born to
them, to whom they gave the name of Arpad.

This vexed old Csanta sorely. Why should the last remaining Greek girl
have married--above all, married a music-master? Why should there be a
son? Why should that son be baptized Arpad? And why should these
annoying circumstances take place under his very nose? The house, too,
was an offence; the only house in the street that did not belong to
him. The church was his; no one went in except himself; the clergyman
said mass for him only. He was the patron, the congregation, the
curator, the vestryman, the supporter; he filled every office; he was
everything. When he was dead the church would be closed, the grass
would grow upon the threshold.

The generation in the next house showed no sign of dying; the boy
Arpad was as lively as an eel. At the age of five he threw his ball
over the roof, and it fell into the old Greek's garden, who there and
then confiscated it. The lad gave him much more annoyance.

About this time evil days came to the country. The Hungarians and the
Austrians killed one another. The reason of their so doing is hard to
find. Historians of the present day say that it was all child's play,
and that the cause lay in the refusal of the Hungarian sepoys--who are
Mohammedans--to bite off