fore entered the mouth of any of my kindred!"

Hanzli's confusion increased at every step, till at last he could not
find his own hands.

Oh, the worthy German dragoons! they were much more reasonable guests;
they knew how to appreciate the good barley-bree! Then each had his
own place, and his own tankard, beside which he would sit half the
night singing honest German songs, or treating of Kant's philosophy,
till some had fallen asleep on their benches, and others under them!

But the Magyar people have no conception of the ecstatic, or of
beer-drinking; and it would be morally impossible to cut German or
philosophy out of their nature.

Vendel-gazda had so completely lost all presence of mind, that he
actually raised the tankard three times to his lips before he
perceived that it was empty. From his earliest childhood he had grown
up with the idea that every honest soul should keep clear of hussar
soldiery; but he was not quite certain as to whether Mistress Vicza
had been educated in the same principles.

Beneath the cupboard, with its head resting on Vendel's slippers, lay
his favourite curly-haired, tail-clipped poodle, emitting now a half
sneeze in its sleep, and now a snarl, as if in sympathy with its
master's feelings.

"Good evening to you, Master Host," exclaimed the mischief-loving
hussar, at the same time striking him on the shoulder as familiarly as
if he had been one of his own recruits.

Vendel opened his eyes--that is, his eye--as wide as possible; while
the hussar, seizing his enormous palm, gave it such a hearty slap that
the room echoed with the sound, and then shaking it after the
Hungarian fashion till the whole of the fat Colossus trembled like
jelly, he sat down on the bench beside him, and thrust his finger and
thumb into the open snuff-box, which the good man held in the other
hand. In trying to find a place for his feet under the table, he trod
so hard on the stump of the sleeping poodle's tail that it actually
crackled, sending the poor animal howling most lamentably round the
room, while his howls were re-echoed by all the six or eight dogs in
the court-yard.

"Come, come, don't make such a noise," said the hussar; "what if I had
stood on your nose?" And as the dog returned to its accustomed place
at its master's feet, he got hold of its head between his knees and
filled its nostrils with snuff; while the poor animal, endeavouring to
bite, bark, and sneeze at the same time, exhibite