Veronica looked gratefully at Mravucsán, and Gyuri wondered, if it came to the point, would Mravucsán be able to carry out his plan, or would he have to be carried himself. The mayor was an elderly man, and looked as though he were breaking up. He found himself glancing curiously at the old gentleman, measuring his strength, the breadth of his chest, and of his shoulders, as though the most important fact now were, who was to take Veronica on his back. He decided that Mravucsán was too weak to do it, and smiled to himself when he discovered how glad this thought made him.
Mravucsán's voice broke in upon his musings.
"Well, my dear," he was saying, "don't you worry yourself about it; take a rest first, and then we will see what is to be done. Of course it would be better to have other horses, but where are we to get them from? No one in Bábaszék keeps horses, we only need oxen. I myself only keep oxen. For a mountain is a mountain, and horses are of no use there, for they can, after all, only do what an ox can, namely, walk slowly. You can't make a grand show here with horses, and let them gallop and prance about, and toss their manes. This is a serious part, yes, I repeat it, a serious part. The chief thing is to pull, and that is the work of an ox. A horse gets tired of it, and when it knows the circumstances it loses all pleasure in life, and seems to say: 'I'm not such a fool as to grow for nothing, I'll be a foal all my life.' And the horses round about here are not much bigger than a dog, and are altogether wretched-looking."
He would have gone on talking all night, and running the poor horses down to the ground, if Gyuri had not interrupted him.
"But I have my dog-cart here, Miss Veronica, and will take you home with pleasure."
"Will you really," exclaimed Mravucsán. "I knew you were a gentleman. But why on earth didn't you say so before?"
"Because you gave me no chance to put in a word edgeways."
"That is true," laughed Mravucsán good-humoredly. "So you will take them?"
"Of course, even if I were not going to Glogova myself."
"Are you really going there?" asked Veronica, surprised.