s honour to fork out now when you press him, but money goes and more
is wanted. One of these days something will happen to him and he will
die,--and you can't follow him to the moon."

This was indeed a hard nut for Margari to crack. One cannot squeeze much
out of dead men. Such an impression did the remark make upon him that he
took his feet off the sofa and sat bolt upright.

"Then what do you think I ought to do?" he asked his wife.

"Well, it is of no use his doling you out mere driblets; for the great
services you have rendered him he ought to give you something more in
proportion to your merits--a little estate in the country, for instance.
There we could settle down comfortably."

"True, and he has lots of such little properties which are of no use to
him at all. What do you say, for instance, to an estate of one hundred
acres or so; it would be a mere flea-bite to him. But flea-bite or no
flea-bite that's all one to me. I _wish_ him to give it me and give it
he must. I mean to pick and choose."

"And suppose he says no?"

"He'll never say that, or if he does, I shall say something to somebody
and then it will be he who will be sorry and not I. Oh, he'll take jolly
good care not to make Margari angry. His honour has much more need of
Margari's friendship than Margari has of his honour's."

And we shall very soon see under what auspices Margari hoped to get the
little country estate from Mr. John Lapussa as a reward for his faithful
services.

Meanwhile the action brought by Madame Langai against Mr. John Lapussa
was still in its initial stage. Both parties were inexhaustible in
producing documents and raising points of law, but it seemed highly
probable that Mr. John would win. Mr. John appeared almost daily before
the magistrate, whom he called his dear friend and whom he frequently
invited to dine, an invitation which, naturally, was never accepted. One
day Mr. Monori, for that was the worthy magistrate's name, asked Mr.
John whether he knew anything of a certain Margari who was soliciting
the post of a clerk in the district court and gave as his reference the
Lapussa family in whose service he had been for some years. Mr. John,
with his innate niggardliness, at once seized this opportunity for
disembarrassing himself of an importunate beggar by saddling the county
with him. He exalted "the worthy, excellent man" to the skies, and
especially praised his rectitude, his sobriety, his diligence!

"But is