endel reclined in his arm-chair, giving full scope to the flights
of his imagination.

At last the silent guest, tired of leaning on one elbow, exchanged it
for the other, and, nodding condescendingly to Hanzli, he emptied his
pipe; and again leaning on his arm, and drawing his mouth fearfully to
one side with his fist, exclaimed: "Well, Hanzli deak,[70] have you
heard that the French are coming?"

[Footnote 70: Scholar, student.]

"Ah, indeed!" cried Hanzli, starting; "from Turkey?"

Hanzli had studied about two years, and knew something of geography.
He could speak a little Hungarian, too, and Moravian, and German--just
enough of each to prevent him being sold in any of them (had there
been anybody to buy him), and he jumbled all these languages together
so strangely, that it would have been difficult to say which one he
meant to speak.

"Indeed, I cannot tell that; I do not know where they come from,"
replied the guest. "But this much is certain, that they all carry
their heads under their arms, have eyes in their shoulders, and when
they get hold of a man they snap his head off--kakk it goes!"

Hanzli raised his hands to his neck: he thought they had got him
already.

"Just so," continued the guest, wiping his bearded chin with the
sleeve of his coat. "Then all their generals eat two pounds of iron,
every morning, and wash it down with a pint of vitriol."

"By all the saints!" exclaimed Hanzli, opening his mouth and eyes;
"have you seen them yet, Andras-gazda?"

"I was at a place where they were talking about them: my godfather's
niece has a bridegroom whose brother is serving with the green csako
hussars--they have just quartered a troop in the district, and it was
he who related it."

At the word 'hussar,' Vendel's attention began to be excited; it was
the only word he understood in Hungarian, and it brought to his
recollection so much poultry which had been carried off by the kites,
and so many barrels of wine which the great bell[71] had paid, and
still pays for to the present day.

[Footnote 71: In Hungary, there is a proverb that unpaid debts will be
collected by the great bell.]

But it is a bad thing to mention the evil one, for he is sure to be
prowling about the garden; and Vendel-gazda had scarcely time to
summon to his imagination that human being metamorphosed into the
inhuman called a hussar, before the door burst open, as if Sisera's
army had arrived, and six moustached figures, each o