"But they take their rest and recreation very noisily."

The Town Captain shrugged his shoulders, he could do nothing in the matter; it was a ticklish business to interfere in; it did not fall within his jurisdiction, etc., etc.

But when, finally, Szigligeti said: "My lodger, the correspondent of the _Jelenkor_, cannot sleep all night because of them," then, indeed, the Town Captain suddenly leaped from his chair, set all his myrmidons in motion, and by the next day the whole flower-garden and dancing academy was transferred to another forcing bed. Such in those days was the authority of a newspaper correspondent.... I was therefore no longer a mere cipher. I was a something now. And, more than that, I was a somebody also. For it was in those days that I pa.s.sed my legal examination, and became a certificated lawyer in the ordinary and commercial courts. My diploma, indeed, was not _praeclarus_, but at any rate it was _laudibilis_. The oral _rigorosum_ I pa.s.sed through brilliantly, but in the _scripturistik_ (there's a fine dog Latin word for you!) my _Hungarian style_ was not considered satisfactory.

The publication of my legal diploma in the county court was a sufficiently dignified excuse for a visit to my native town. With head erect I could now enter the presence of the fairy damsel with the sparkling "eyes like the sea."

CHAPTER VI

AN ODD DUEL--THE FATEFUL LETTER J.--I ALSO BECOME A PETER GYURICZA

Emericus Vahot had discovered a youthful humorist whom he attached to the staff of his newspaper. Ultimately he became a most eminent writer, but at first he was quite a savage genius. He knew no languages but Hungarian and Latin. He was really after all a very worthy young fellow.

He, too, took his place amongst us at the "Table of Public Opinion,"

and even brought a pair of friends with him. One of the friends was a wry-shouldered critic, who judged the stage from a philological point of view, but the other was Muki Bagotay. He was not a writer, but a mere figure head. As, however, he drank with us, he considered himself as one of us.

One afternoon the humorist and Muki fell out. Muki had thought good to boast of a certain conquest of his, the humorist had made a joke of it; a squabble ensued, and from words they came to blows. I was not there, but I heard all about it from those who were. There could not be a doubt that the end of it would be a duel. Late in the evening, just as I was preparing to go to bed, the wry-shouldered critic rushed into my room.

His face was even more portentous than usual.

"I have to communicate a secret to you, but you must give me your word as a gentleman not to let the matter go any further."

"I give you my word upon it."

"Our friend is going to fight Muki Bagotay to-morrow, I am his second."

"That's all right."

"Would you be so good as to lend us the weapons?"

"My friend, I only possess one pistol, and that is a double-barrelled one."

"That will just do!"

"What the deuce? I suppose one of them will fire with it first, and if he does not hit his man he'll hand it over to the other, and he'll fire back with it?"

"Precisely!"

The crooked critic said this with such a solemn face that it was impossible not to believe him. This was quite a novel mode of duelling, and not a bad idea either.

Early next morning, before I had got up, the second again appeared before me. He brought back the fatal pistol.

"It is over," said he, with mournful dignity.

"What was the result?"

"Our poor friend was. .h.i.t!"

"Dangerously?"

"The bullet penetrated his arm. But it has been taken out now."

The news excited all my sympathy.

I threw on my clothes and made my way to the Pillwax coffee-house. I found my good friends already at the "Table of Public Opinion," and every one of them shared my compa.s.sion. The critic related the mournful details to us.

All at once two of our comrades, Degre and Lauka, rushed excitedly into the coffee-house. "The whole duel was a swindle!" they cried. "There was no harm done to any one. He was not even wounded. He is lying in bed with his arm tied up, and a b.l.o.o.d.y shirt; they are giving him ice cataplasms--the whole thing is a pure farce!"

The second, however, solemnly maintained that his princ.i.p.al had been wounded.

"We will convince ourselves of the fact."

"Surely you would not want them to tear the bandages from the gaping wound?" This I also resolutely opposed, and, taking the part of my colleague, devised another expedient.

"Who was the doctor who bound up the wound?"

The critic mentioned the doctor's name.

"We'll go to the doctor, then."

Dr. K----y was a worthy, honest, high-spirited fellow, who well deserved the public respect.

We rushed upon him in a body.

"Tell us, now," we said, "is there a wound on the arm of the humorist?"

"There is," replied the doctor.

"Is it true that you took a bullet out of it?"

"It is true."

"On your professional reputation?"

"On my professional reputation."

With that my friends were bound to be satisfied. No further inquiries could be made.

When, however, my two friends had withdrawn, I remained behind with the doctor, and I said to him, "My dear doctor, you have answered the question, did you take a bullet out of our friend's arm? but now answer me this question, who put that bullet in?"

"Egad! egad! egad!" growled the doctor, "you imaginative people are really sad scamps!"

The fact was that our humorist and Muki Bagotay had fought an American duel: whoever drew the black ball had--well, not to die, but to get Dr.

K----y to make a wound in his arm. The doctor, with his lancet, made an incision about two centimetres in length and four millemetres in depth, in the epidermis just below the biceps; into this wound he insinuated a bullet, then took it out, sewed up the wound, and so wounded honour was amply satisfied. And I'll not say a single word against this being the most correct mode of procedure imaginable.

Then I went home to my native town, ostensibly to advertise my legal diploma, but really to look once more upon her from whom I had been so long absent.