he bystanders. "He
actually has the impertinence to ask us why we laugh! Come, sir! where
did you leave the Baroness Hatszegi?"

"I don't see what there is to laugh at at such a question?" replied
Gerzson, in whose mind all sorts of dark forebodings began to arise.

"What have you done with the baroness? What have you done with our
friend Leonard's wife, I say?" persisted the count.

"That is a perfect riddle to me," growled Gerzson in a low voice.

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the count, "it is a riddle to him what has become
of his travelling companion."

"But can any of you tell me what has happened to her? Is she alive?"

The count clapped his hands together and flung his round hat upon the
ground.

"Now, that is what I call a _leetle_ too strong! He asks: is she alive?
Why, comrade, where have you been in hiding all this time?"

"A truce to jesting," cried Gerzson fiercely. "Tell me all you know
about it, for it is no joking matter for me, I can assure you."

On perceiving that Gerzson was seriously angry, Kengyelesy drew nearer
to him and enlightened him without any more beating about the bush:
"Well then, my dear friend, let me tell you that you have behaved very
badly. First of all you made all four of Hatszegi's horses lame; in the
second place you compelled his poor wife to spend a night in a _csarda_
of the _puszta_, and in the third place you got so drunk that you began
to quarrel with her and at last did not know whether you were boy or
girl. The poor little woman has grown almost grey with terror, and after
you had fallen to the ground in liquor she sent the coachman to town for
fresh horses and, leaving you under the table, tried to make her way
back to Arad."

"That is not true," interrupted Gerzson, his whole face purple with
rage.

"What is not true?"

"Where is the baroness?"

"Stop, stop, my friend! Don't run away! You'll never catch her up, for,
early this morning, she drove back to Hidvar in a postchaise with her
husband."

"That can not be true. Did you see her?"

"I saw her through my own field glass. But we all saw her--did we not,
gentlemen?"

Many of those present admitted that they had indeed seen the baroness.

"But my dear fellow," said the perturbed Gerzson, "this is no joke. On
the contrary, my adventure with the baroness is somewhat tragical, and
I'll trouble you to expend no more of your feeble witticisms on me."

Kengyelesy shrugged his shoulders. "I did not know you wo