leaving this world) if he
can't throw some light on the subject. Go to the fair, my dear boy, to
the place where the sheep stand, and speak to the handsomest man you see
there, that will be my son Moricz; he's handsome, very handsome, is
Moricz. Speak to him, and promise him the fifty florins. I am sure he
once told me something about that umbrella. For when my poor dear Jonas
died, Moricz went to look for him, and when he found traces of him, he
went from village to village making inquiries, till everything was
clear. (Here Rosalia gazed tearfully heavenward.) Oh, Jonas, Jonas, why
did you treat us so? If your senses had left you, why must you follow
them? You had enough sons who would have taken care of you!"

She would have gone on like this all day, if Gyuri had not stepped into
his dog-cart and driven off to the scene of the fair as she had advised
him.

After putting a few questions to the bystanders, he found Moricz Muencz,
a short, stout man, his pock-marked face looking like a turkey's egg.
He was as ugly as a Faun. His butcher's knife and steel hung from a belt
round his waist, and on his arm was tattooed the head of an ox.

He was just bargaining for a cow, and its owner, a tanner, was swearing
by heaven and earth that such a cow had never been seen in Babaszek
before.

"It will eat straw," he assured him, "and yet give fourteen pints of
milk a day!"

"Rubbish!" answered Moricz. "I'm not a calf, and don't intend to look
upon this cow as my mother. I'm a butcher, and want to kill it and weigh
it."

"That's true," said the honest tanner; and of his own free will he
lowered the price by five florins.

Moricz did not seem to think that enough, and began poking at the ribs
of the cow.

"What bones!" he exclaimed, and then pulled open its mouth to look at
its teeth. "Why, it has not got a tooth in its head!"

"What do you want it to have teeth for?" asked the honest tanner. "I
don't suppose you want to weigh its teeth too?"

"But it kicks!"

"Well, it won't kick once it is killed; and I don't suppose you want to
weigh it before it is killed?"

The honest tanner laughed at his own wit, which had put him into such a
good humor, that he again took five florins off the price. But Moricz
was not yet satisfied, for he still gazed at the cow, as though trying
to find more faults in her. And just at that moment Gyuri Wibra called
out:

"Mr. Muencz, I should like to have a word with you."

The tanner, f