"Give him brandy, if there is any."
"No!" said Ratz Andor. "He shan't have it. He is more than half drunk as it is. He'll bring us into trouble!"
"But I am hungry!" cried the boy, appealing to Viola.
"Why did you come to be a robber? No one told you to come."
"And who told you?"
"My case is different!" said Andor, gloomily. "I am a deserter. I served the Emperor for ten years. I tell you, boy, I did my duty in the greatest war that ever was; and when we came home from our campaigns and they refused to let me go my ways, the devil put it into my head that I'd been a soldier overlong. So I flung my musket away, and here I am. But, confound me! if I were a butcher's son, as you are, you would not find me in the forest; nor would you Viola, take my word for it!"
"I don't care!" said the butcher, unmoved by the old man's words; "a robber's life's a merry life. I want lush!"
"Give it him," repeated Viola. "Let him take his fill."
"Why, the fellow is drunk," said Ratz Andor, doggedly. "There never was a gang of robbers but it was ruined by drink."
"We are safe for this night; though I trust Peti will come, and bring us meat from the Gulyash. The justice is at Dustbury; and as for the haiduks, they'd rather go out of our way than cross it."