d eked out her miserable income
as best she could.

For a long time she looked with a frightened gaze at her neighbor's
passage, expecting to see the old man hanging from an iron hook; but
she was spared this sight. The old man had no notion of ending his
days. He had certainly lost a few thousand gulden, but these were only
the chaff; the corn was safe. He had a secret hiding-place to which he
could have access by a secret passage underneath his house; the cellar
was, in fact, underneath the water. A mason from Vienna had built it
for him, and the people of the town knew nothing of it. The cellar was
full of casks, and every cask was full of silver; the old man's cellar
concealed a treasure. By means of secret machinery constructed in his
bedroom the owner was able by touching a spring to open a sluice
concealed in the bed of the stream, and thus in a few minutes to
submerge his cave. No robber could have penetrated there. All the gold
and silver pieces which came into Csanta's hand found their way to
this subterranean hiding-place, and never saw the light of day again.

Meantime his neighbor, the widow, suffered the grip of poverty; she
sewed her fingers to the bone to keep things together and to earn
their daily bread. The gold pieces Ivan had given she wouldn't have
touched even to save herself from starvation; they were used for the
purpose for which he gave them--for Arpad's musical education, and
musical instruction was so dear. The child was a genius.

But living grew dearer, work harder to get. The widow was forced to
get a loan upon the house; she asked her neighbor, and he gave it
readily. The loan grew and grew until it reached a good sum of money,
and then Csanta asked it back. Frau Belenyi was not able to refund,
and the old man instituted proceedings, and as he was the only
mortgagee he got it for one-quarter its real value. The amount over
and above the debt and the costs were handed to the widow, and there
was nothing left but to leave. Madame Belenyi took her son to Vienna,
to begin in earnest his artistic education.

The old Greek possessed the whole street; there was no one left to
annoy him in his immediate neighborhood; he suffered neither from
children, dogs, or birds. And his treasure increased more and more.
The casks which filled the cellar that lay beneath the water were
filled to overflowing, and the contents were always silver.

One day Csanta received a visit. It was an old acquaintanc