And he was as good a man as you could wish to see, but what was the good of it? Some evil spirit always seemed to accompany him and induce people to misunderstand his intentions.
The day he came back from Pest, where he had been completing his studies, he went into a tobacconist's shop and bought some fine Havanas, which at once set all the tongues in Besztercebánya wagging.
"The good-for-nothing fellow smokes seven-penny cigars, does he? That is a nice way to begin. He'll die in the workhouse. Oh, if his poor dead father could rise from his grave and see him! Why, the old man used to mix dry potato leaves with his tobacco to make it seem more, and poured the dregs of the coffee on it to make it burn slower."
Pál Gregorics heard that he had displeased the good townsfolk by smoking such dear cigars, and immediately took to short halfpenny ones. But this did not suit them either, and they remarked:
"Really, Pál Gregorics is about the meanest man going, he'll be worse than his father in time!"
Gregorics felt very vexed at being called mean, and decided to take the very next opportunity to prove the contrary. The opportunity presented itself in the form of a ball, given in aid of a hospital, and of which the Mayoress of the town was patroness. The programme announced that though the tickets were two florins each, any larger sum would be gratefully accepted. So Pál Gregorics gave twenty florins for his two-florin ticket, thinking to himself "They shan't say I am mean this time."
Upon that the members of the committee put their heads together and decided that Pál Gregorics was a tactless fellow. It was the greatest impertinence on his part to outbid the Mayor, and a baron to boot! Baron Radvánszky had given ten florins for his ticket, and Gregorics throws down twenty. Why, it was an insult! The son of a wine merchant! What things do happen in the nineteenth century, to be sure! Whatever Pál Gregorics did was wrong; if he quarrelled with some one and would not give in, they said he was a brawler; and if he gave in, he was a coward.
Though he had studied law, he did nothing particular at first, only drove to his estate a mile or two out of the town and spent a few hours shooting; or he went for a few days to Vienna, where he had a house inherited from his mother; and the rest of his time he spent in Besztercebánya.
"Pál Gregorics," they said, "is a lazy fellow; he does nothing useful from one year's end to the other. Why are such useless creatures allowed to live?"
Pál heard this too, and quite agreed with them that he ought to get some work to do, and not waste his life as he was doing. Of course, every one should earn the bread they eat. So he looked for some employment in the town. That was enough to set all the tongues wagging again. What? Gregorics wanted work in the town? Was he not ashamed of himself, trying to take the bread out of poor men's mouths, when he had plenty of cake for himself? Let him leave the small amount of employment there was in the town to those who really needed it. Gregorics quite understood the force of this argument, and gave up his idea. He now turned his thoughts toward marriage, and determined to start a family; after all that was as good an occupation as any other.