m of the
office, for he was now Gyuri's servant. But he also said he had
forgotten far more important things than that in all these years; but
this much he did remember, that the dead man had kept the umbrella near
him till the hour of his death.

"Heaven only knows," he added, "why he took such care of the ragged old
thing."

(Not only heaven knew the reason now, but Gyuri too!)

He got more information from the old woman who kept the grocer's shop in
old Gregorics's house; she had been in the house when he died, and had
helped to lay him out. She swore by heaven and earth that the umbrella
had been tightly clutched in the dead man's hand, and they had had the
greatest difficulty in freeing it from his grasp.

"Yes," said the old woman, "the umbrella was certainly in his hand, may
I never move from this spot if it is not true."

"It is all the same," muttered Gyuri; "we want to know where it is now."

"I suppose it was sold with the rest of the things."

That seemed very likely, so Gyuri went and looked up the list of things
that had been sold at the auction. All sorts of things were
mentioned--tables, chairs, cupboards, coats, etc.--but there was no
mention of an umbrella. He read it over ten times, but it was of no use,
he could find no mention of it, unless the following could be considered
as such.

"Various useless objects, bought for two florins by the white Jew."

Perhaps the umbrella was one of those useless objects, and had been
bought by the "white Jew." Well, the first thing was to find the "white
Jew." But who was he? For in those good old days there were not as many
Jews in Hungary as there are now; there were perhaps one or two in the
town, so it was easy to find them; for one was called "red," another
"gray," another "white," a fourth "black," according to the color of
their hair; and by means of these four colors the townsfolk were able to
distinguish any Jew who lived in their town. But now there were some
hundred Jewish families, and heaven had not increased the shades of
their hair to such an extent that each family could be distinguished in
the old way.

It was not difficult to find out about the old Jew, and Gyuri soon knew
that he was called Jonas Muencz, and it was very likely he had bought the
things, for all the coats and vests found their way into his tiny shop
in Wheat Street, before starting on the second chapter of their
existence.

Many people remember the little shop in whic