and then laid himself down in it and fell
asleep.

For some time Mr. Korde kept on pulling and tugging at him to get him
out, first by an arm and then by a leg. However, so far from giving his
friend any encouragement, Mr. Csicseri only rebuked his wife for putting
such a low pillow beneath his head, and then, without pursuing the
subject further, went off as sound asleep as a humming top.

So the cantor found himself all alone in a strange world.

In front of him lay the high road, and the village was only three
hundred yards further on; but wine is a bad compass in a man's noddle,
and never points north in the same direction two minutes together.

He resolved, therefore, to return to the inn among the vineyards. Acting
straightway upon this noble resolve, he stumbled along totally unknown
paths up hill and down dale; plunged through field after field of Indian
corn; pursued his endless way through hemp grounds and fallow lands;
scrambled on all fours through hedges and ditches, and finally forced
his way through a vast morass in which he wallowed freely. In a sober
condition he would have come to grief twenty times over, but Fate always
protects the toper.

Then he strayed into a vast forest; zig-zagged through fens and coppices
like an old dog-wolf; tore himself almost to ribbons among the sloe and
blackberry bushes, and emerged at last at a ramshackle forest-keeper's
hut, the door of which stood wide open.

By this time he bore not the slightest resemblance to man or beast.

In the courtyard a big, shaggy, lazy mastiff was shambling about, who,
on perceiving a strange unknown four-legged animal (Mr. Korde had ceased
for a time to belong to the category: man) thus approaching him, sidled
up to him with incomparable phlegm, and began sniffing at him all round.

Mr. Korde forthwith collared the neck of the huge dog and began kissing
him all over. "Dear friend, faithful old comrade," he cried, "what a
long time it is since last we met! What! don't you recognise your old
schoolfellow?"--whereupon the big dog in his extreme bewilderment sat
down beside the ex-cantor on his haunches and was so astonished that he
forgot to bark.

At this Mr. Korde was completely overcome. Once more he warmly pressed
the head of his so unexpectedly recovered friend to his bosom, and then
shambled along with him into the courtyard. He pathetically complained
to him on the way that he had been chucked out of his employment and was
no