e stranger flung a thaler at his feet.

"Take that, you dog, for your trouble. And now open the gate!"

The horse splashed the 'prentice's eyes and mouth full of mud as the
stranger galloped away.

At the sound of the rapidly retreating hoofs the headsman thought to
himself: "That was Heaven's own gracious messenger." The headsman's
young wife, however, sighed: "Ah! that _was_ a gay gentleman." But the
'prentice growled furiously: "It was old Nick himself."

And with that he picked up the thaler, wiped the mud off it, put it in
his pocket, and then turned furiously upon the watch-dog and kicked out
one of its teeth.

"Take that for not barking!" cried he.

* * * * *

The whole house of Hetfalu was still in mourning. The doctor from town
looked in every day. There were two invalids to be seen to. Young
Szephalmi was able indeed to go about, but he was like a worm-eaten
plant, there seemed to be but little life within him. Old Hetfalusy, on
the other hand, had altogether succumbed to his woe, he had taken to his
bed, and was frequently tormented by epileptic fits.

The doctor, worthy Mr. Laurence Sarkantyus, regularly every day
deposited his round-headed bamboo cane in the doorway, rubbed his
short-cropped grey hair all over with his pocket handkerchief for a
minute or two, felt the respective pulses, wrote out prescriptions for
unguents and syrups; ordered baths, blisters, clysters, and cold
douches--and all to no purpose, as both patients seemed to dwindle away
more and more day by day. The only really doubtful point seemed to be,
which of the two would bury the other?

One day, when Dr. Sarkantyus was superintending the preparation of a hot
bath, a light chaise drove into the courtyard of the castle, from which
our unknown friend descended, dressed in a stylish black frock coat,
and shod with elegant calfskin shoes. His long hair was combed back and
smoothed down behind his ears on both sides, and he had an eyeglass
cocked knowingly in one eye. Altogether he looked very different from
what he was when we last saw him. His characteristic _sang froid_, that
peculiar rigidity of the lips, that faint furrow in the middle of the
forehead between the eyebrows, and the gravity of the somewhat languid
face, made the metamorphosis complete. A savant, a scholar of practical
experience, a cosmopolitan physician stands before us.

He inquired for Mr. Szephalmi. The servants at once announc