put their heads together and
decided that Pal Gregorics was a tactless fellow. It was the greatest
impertinence on his part to outbid the Mayor, and a baron to boot! Baron
Radvanszky had given ten florins for his ticket, and Gregorics throws
down twenty. Why, it was an insult! The son of a wine merchant! What
things do happen in the nineteenth century, to be sure! Whatever Pal
Gregorics did was wrong; if he quarrelled with some one and would not
give in, they said he was a brawler; and if he gave in, he was a coward.

Though he had studied law, he did nothing particular at first, only
drove to his estate a mile or two out of the town and spent a few hours
shooting; or he went for a few days to Vienna, where he had a house
inherited from his mother; and the rest of his time he spent in
Besztercebanya.

"Pal Gregorics," they said, "is a lazy fellow; he does nothing useful
from one year's end to the other. Why are such useless creatures allowed
to live?"

Pal heard this too, and quite agreed with them that he ought to get some
work to do, and not waste his life as he was doing. Of course, every
one should earn the bread they eat. So he looked for some employment in
the town. That was enough to set all the tongues wagging again. What?
Gregorics wanted work in the town? Was he not ashamed of himself, trying
to take the bread out of poor men's mouths, when he had plenty of cake
for himself? Let him leave the small amount of employment there was in
the town to those who really needed it. Gregorics quite understood the
force of this argument, and gave up his idea. He now turned his thoughts
toward marriage, and determined to start a family; after all that was as
good an occupation as any other.

So he began to frequent various houses where there were pretty girls to
be met, and where he, being a good match, was well received; but his
step-brothers, who were always in hopes that the delicate little man
would not live long, did their best to upset his plans in this case too.
So Pal Gregorics got so many refusals one after the other, that he was
soon renowned in the whole neighborhood. Later on he could have found
many who would have been glad of an offer from him, but they were
ashamed to let him see it. After all, how could they marry a man whom so
many girls had refused?

On the eve of St. Andrew's any amount of lead was melted by the young
girls of the town, but not one of them saw in the hardened mass the
form of Grego