he priest to-morrow? "I have come for
my umbrella"? The priest would only laugh at him, for, either he was
bigoted and superstitious, in which case he would believe St. Peter had
brought the umbrella to his sister, or he was a Pharisee, and in that
case he would not be such a fool as to betray himself.

The wind was rising, and the badly fitting windows and door of the
little room that had been allotted to him were rattling, and the
furniture cracked now and then. He could even hear the wind whistling
through the Liskovina Wood, not far from the house. Gyuri blew out the
light and lay down again under the big eider-down quilt, and imagined
he saw the corpse Mr. Mravucsan had spoken of, hanging from a tree,
waving from side to side in the wind, and nodding its head at him,
saying: "Oh, yes, Mr. Wibra, you'll be well laughed at in the parish of
Glogova."

The lawyer tossed about on the snow-white pillows, from which an odor of
spring emanated (they had been out in the garden to air the day before).

"Never mind," thought he, "the umbrella is mine after all. I can prove
it in a court of justice if necessary. I have witnesses. There are Mr.
Sztolarik, Mrs. Muencz and her sons, the whole town of Besztercebanya."

Then he laughed bitterly.

"And yet, what am I thinking of? I can't prove it, for, after all, the
umbrella does not belong to me, but to the Muencz family, for the old man
bought it. So only that which is in the handle belongs to me. But can I
go to the priest and say: 'Your reverence, in the handle of the umbrella
is a check for 200,000 or 300,000 florins, please give it to me, for it
belongs of right to me'?"

Then Gyuri began to wonder what the priest would answer. He either
believed the legend of the umbrella, and would then say: "Go along, do!
St. Peter is not such a fool as to bring you a check on a bank from
Heaven!" Or if he did look in the handle and find the receipt, he would
say: "Well, if he did bring it, he evidently meant it for me." And he
would take it out and keep it. Why should he give it to Gyuri? How was
he to prove it belonged to him?

"Supposing," thought our hero, "I were to tell him the whole story,
about my mother, about my father, and all the circumstances attending
his death. Let us imagine he would believe it from Alpha to Omega; of
what use would it be? Does it prove that the treasure is mine? Certainly
not. And even if it did, would he give it to me? A priest is only a man
after