ve them the chance. But he did not intend to give them the chance. He
trembled for the child, and hardly dared to love him. He started a new
line of conduct, a very mad one too. He ordered the boy to address him
as "sir" for the future, and forbade him to love him.

"It was only a bit of fun, you know, my allowing you to call me 'uncle.'
Do you understand?"

Tears stood in the boy's eyes, and seeing them old Gregorics bent down
and kissed them away; and his voice was very sad as he said:

"Don't tell any one I kissed you, or you will be in great danger."

Precaution now became his mania. He took Kupeczky into his house, and
the old professor had to be with the boy day and night, and taste every
bit of food he was to eat. If Gyuri went outside the gates, he was first
stripped of his velvet suit and patent leather shoes, and dressed in a
ragged old suit kept on purpose, and allowed to run barefoot. Let people
ask in the streets, "Who is that little scarecrow?" And let those who
knew answer, "Oh, that is Gregorics's cook's child."

And, in order thoroughly to deceive his relations, he undertook to
educate one of his step-sister's boys; took him up to Vienna and put him
in the Terezianum, and kept him there in grand style with the sons of
counts and barons. To his other nephews and nieces he sent lots of
presents, so that the Gregorics family, who had never liked the younger
brother, came at last to the conclusion that he was not such a bad
fellow after all, only something of a fool.

Little Gyuri himself was sent away to school after a time; to Kolozsvar
and then to Szeged, as far away as possible, so as to be out of reach of
the family. At these times Kupeczky secretly disappeared from the town
too, though he might as well have been accompanied by a drum and fife
band, for not a soul would have asked where he was going.

Doubtless there was a lot of exaggeration in all this secrecy and
precaution, but exaggeration had a large share in Gregorics's character.
If he undertook something very difficult he was more adventurous than
the devil himself, and once his fear was overcome, he saw hope in every
corner. His love for the child and his fear were both exaggerated, but
he could not help it.

While the boy was pursuing his studies with success, the little man with
the red umbrella was placing his money in landed estate. He said he had
bought a large estate in Bohemia, and in order to pay for it had been
obliged to sel