elong to you, and you will find it very useful to protect you
from the wind and clouds."

Gyuri thought this great nonsense. Such old gentlemen always attached
themselves so to their belongings, and thought such a lot of them. Why,
one of his professors had a penholder he had used for forty years!

One episode in connection with the umbrella remained fixed in Gyuri's
memory ever after. One day they rowed out to the "Yellow," as they call
a small island situated just where the Maros and the Tisza met, and
where the fishermen of Szeged cook their far-famed "fish with paprika"
(a kind of cayenne grown in Hungary, and much used in the national
dishes). We read in Marton's famous cookery book that "fish with
paprika" must only be boiled in Tisza water, and the same book says that
a woman cannot prepare the dish properly.

Well, as I said before, the three of them rowed out to the "Yellow." As
they were landing they struck against a sand heap, and Gregorics, who
was in the act of rising from his seat, stumbled and lost his balance,
and in trying to save himself from falling dropped his umbrella into the
water, and the current carried it away with it.

"My umbrella, save it!" shouted Gregorics, who had turned as white as a
sheet, and in whose eyes they read despair. The two boatmen smiled, and
the elder one, slowly removing his pipe from his mouth, remarked
laconically:

"No great loss that, sir; it was only fit to put in the hands of a
scarecrow."

"One hundred florins to the one who brings it me back," groaned the old
gentleman.

The boatmen, astonished, gazed at one another, then the younger man
began to pull off his boots.

"Are you joking, sir, or do you mean it?"

"Here are the hundred florins," said Gregorics, taking a bank-note from
his pocket-book.

The young man, a fine specimen of a Szeged fisherman, turned to
Kupeczky.

"Is the old chap mad?" he asked in his lackadaisical way, while the
umbrella quietly floated down the stream.

"Oh dear no," answered Kupeczky, who, however, was himself surprised at
Gregorics's strange behavior.

"It's not worth it, domine spectabilis," he added, turning to the old
gentleman.

"Quick, quick!" gasped Gregorics.

Another doubt had arisen in the boatman's mind.

"Is the bank-note a real one, sir?" he asked.

"Of course it is. Make haste!"

The man, who had by this time taken off both his boots and his jacket,
now sprang into the water like a frog, and began to