brated at the Castle of
Karpatfalva, Squire John's favourite residence, where nobody ever lived
but his cronies, his servants, and his dogs; and he obtained special
permission from his Highness the Palatine to absent himself for a
fortnight from his legislative duties at Pressburg, in order that, as a
good host, he might devote himself entirely to his guests.

As the day approached, an unwonted piety used to take possession of
Squire John. The buffoons and the peasant wenches were excluded from the
castle, and his reverence the village priest took their place, and was
closeted long and frequently with the squire; the dogs and the bears
were locked out of the courtyard, that they might not, as usual, tear
approaching mendicants to pieces; and the Nabob and all his retainers
went to church to partake of the sacrament, the former vowing on his
knees before the altar that he would mark the day by giving all his
enemies the right hand of fellowship and forgiveness. Then came the
regulation interview between the Nabob and his steward, Mr. Peter Varga,
who was such a fool that he not only did not know how to steal, but was
by no means willing to even receive presents except for services
rendered. Anybody else in his place would long since have become a
millionaire; but he had not got much beyond fastening a pair of silver
spurs in his Kordovan leather boots, and making use of a ramshackle old
_caleche_, to which he attached two horses, trained by his own hand ever
since they were colts. This, moreover, was only when he wanted to cut a
figure.

And now, too, we see him descending from this venerable conveyance. He
forbears to drive right in, lest the cranky wheels of his carriage
should cut up the beautiful round pebbles with which the courtyard is
covered.

The inside of the carriage was chock-full of longish tied-up bundles of
documents, which Mr. Peter first of all crammed into the arms of the two
heydukes hastening to meet him, and sent on before him, whilst he,
picking his way along, with his spurred feet at a respectable distance
from each other, straddled leisurely into the presence of Master Jock,
who was awaiting him in the office of the family archives, whose
gigantic whitewashed and gilded coffers, in their worm-eaten cases, rose
up to the ceiling, filled with the mummies of old deeds and discharged
accounts, which, for a long series of years, had been disturbed by
nobody except an ostracized mouse or two; and wha