"Indict me?" cried Kalman, laughing. "My dear father, are you not aware that, to proceed against me, they must have the consent of the quorum? How will they ever get it?" And, pocketing the keys, he left the room.
"A generous lad!" said his mother. "How can Etelka help being fond of him?"
"Capital plan!" sighed Kishlaki; "capital plan, if it remains a secret. It's indeed a generous action; but it's criminal, my love; it's against the laws."
"Do not worry yourself with these thoughts."
"And to think that I had it in my power to prevent it!"
"Never mind. Viola is saved; that's enough for all intents and purposes."
"A cruel law, this," sighed Kishlaki. "I wonder what stuff the man was made of who first proposed it!"
CHAP. IX
To make people reasonable is a difficult thing at all times; but there are cases in which it is not less difficult to make them unreasonable. Kalman Kishlaki was doomed to learn the truth of this maxim, for all his endeavours to induce Mr. Skinner to drink away the niggardly allowance of sense with which Nature had provided that individual, proved abortive. As for Mr. Catspaw, we need not mention him, for he was one of those wretches who are always sober. To intoxicate him was a thing that Kalman never dreamed of. The other guests, not even excepting Baron Shoskuty, answered without any invitations, and as it were spontaneously, to the wishes of their young host; the judge alone stood unshaken, like a sturdy rock in a troubled sea. Mr. Skinner was one of the deepest drinkers in the county; he was not indeed a stranger to the condition in which Kalman wished to see him; but the presence of Völgyeshy, whom he hated, the admonitions of Mr. Catspaw, and above all his honest ambition to add fresh honours to his former trophies, made him proof against any quantity of wine which Kalman induced him to take.