f school in disgrace.

Ah yes, I behaved very ill indeed! I sinned against civilisation by
refusing to wear square-toed boots, and for this enormity I was
banished from the classes; and yet, nothing could induce me to wear
anything but sharp-nosed csizmas.

I went home; and my father, after inflicting severe corporal
punishment, threatened to bind me apprentice to a butcher. But,
unfortunately for this speculation, the resident executioner of oxen
declared that the trade required wit; otherwise I might now have
possessed a two-story house in Pesth.

"You hit where you have your eye, master, don't you?" I asked the
worthy slayer of cattle as he raised his axe, observing (for he
squinted hideously) that he fixed his right eye on the bullock, and
the left one on me.

"Eh! to be sure I do," replied the big man.

"Then I will just place myself beside you," I said, fearing he might
look out of the wrong eye.

"Never fear," said the big man; and with one blow the work was done.

"Well now, Master Janos, tell me what peculiar talents are requisite
here?"

"Heigh! you would not do for this trade. You see we have a different
way of reckoning from what you students have."

"I believe you are right, Master Janos; for my mother is always
complaining of your system of twice two."

And now this man is a landed proprietor, and I--a landless one!

Having been rejected by the schoolmaster and the butcher, I was
considered a hopeless subject, and left to my own devices. What should
I do at home? From morning till evening there was not wherewithal to
stain my teeth; so for want of better employment, I began to look
about the village. This certainly did not require much genius, for our
house was on an eminence, from whence we had a view of the whole
place; and when I mounted the great corn-stack in our yard, I could
see directly into some of our neighbours' courts.

Here it was that I became initiated in certain hidden mysteries,--for
example, how some of our village dames, who would launch forth on
holidays all smartness and finery, were up to their elbows in dirt at
home, and to their knees in mud--their heads vying with those unowned
hay-stacks which are kicked at by every passing colt; while their
lips, which were so daintily prim on holiday occasions that one could
scarcely believe them capable of pronouncing the letter R, now raised
the very dust on the roads with their abuse.

Then there was a house which had two doo