eir patrons from the
ball-room.

Marton looked in at one window so lighted; he had to climb up on
something to do so, for the ground floor was built high, in order that
the water might not enter at the windows.

"He is at home," he remarked, as he stepped down, "but he is evidently
preparing to go out again, for he has his top-coat on."

The gate was open; the carriage was in the courtyard, the horses in the
shafts, covered with rugs.

Their harness had not even been taken off: they must have just arrived
and had to start again at once.

Marton motioned to me to follow him at his heels while he made his way
into the house.

The door we ran up against could not be opened unless one knew the
tricks that made it yield. Marton seemed to be well acquainted with the
peculiarities of the entrance to Moczli's den: first he pressed down on
the door knob and raised the whole door bracing against it with his
shoulder, then turning the knob and giving the door a severe kick it
flew open and in the next moment we found ourselves in a dingy, narrow
hole of a room smelling horribly of axle-grease, tallow and
tobacco-smoke.

On a table, which was leaning against the wall with the side where a leg
was broken, stood a burning tallow-dip stuck into the mouth of an empty
beer-jug, and by its dim light Moczli was seated eating--no, devouring
his supper. With incredible rapidity he was piling in and ramming down,
as it were, enormous slices of blood-sausage in turn with huger chunks
of salted bread.

His many-collared coat was thrown over his huge frame, and his
broad-brimmed hat that was pressed over his eyes was still covered with
hoar-frost that had no chance of thawing in that cold, damp room, the
wall of which glistened like the sides of some dripping cave.

Moczli was a well-fed fellow, with strongly protruding eyes, which
seemed almost to jump out of their sockets as he stared at us for
bursting in upon him without knocking.

"Well, where does it 'burn?'" were his first words to Marton.

"Gently, old fellow; don't make a noise. There is other trouble! You are
betrayed and they will pinch the young gentleman at the frontier."

Moczli was really scared for a moment. A tremendous three-cornered chunk
of bread that he had just thrust in his mouth stuck there staring
frightenedly at us like Moczli himself and looking for all the world as
if a second nose was going to grow on his face; however he soon came to
himself, contin