"A Gregorics and a servant! Such a thing was never heard of before!"
The neighbors tried to pacify them by saying there was nothing strange in the fact, on the contrary it was quite natural. Pál Gregorics had never done things correctly all his life. How much was true and how much false is not known, but the gossip died away by degrees, only to awaken again some years later, when a small boy was seen playing about with a pet lamb in Pál Gregorics's courtyard. Who was the child? Where did he come from? Gregorics himself was often seen playing with him. And people, who sometimes out of curiosity looked through the keyhole of the great wooden gates, saw Gregorics, with red ribbons tied round his waist for reins, playing at horses with the child, who with a whip in his hand kept shouting, "Gee-up, Ráró." And the silly old fellow would kick and stamp and plunge, and even race round the courtyard. And now he was rarely seen limping through the town in his shabby clothes, to which he had become accustomed when he was a spy, and under his arm his red umbrella; he always had it with him, in fine or wet weather, and never left it in the hall when he paid a visit, but took it into the room with him, and kept it constantly in his hand. Sometimes the lady of the house asked if he would not put it down.
"No, no," he would answer, "I am so used to having it in my hand that I feel quite lost without it. It is as though one of my ribs were missing, upon my word it is!"
There was a good deal of talk about this umbrella. Why was he so attached to it? It was incomprehensible. Supposing it contained something important? Somebody once said (I think it was István Pazár who had served in the war), that the umbrella contained all sorts of notes, telegrams, and papers written in his spying days, and that they were in the handle of the umbrella, which was hollow. Well, perhaps it was true.
The other members of the Gregorics family looked with little favor on the small boy in the Gregorics's household, and never rested till they had looked through all the baptismal registers they could lay hands on. At last they came upon the entry they wanted, "György Wibra, illegitimate; mother, Anna Wibra."
He was a pretty little fellow, so full of life and spirits that every one took a fancy to him.
CHAPTER II.
DUBIOUS SIGNS.
Little Gyuri Wibra grew to be a fine lad, strong and broad chested. Pál Gregorics was always saying, "Where on earth does he take that chest from?"
He was so narrow-chested himself that he always gazed with admiration at the boy's sturdy frame, and was so taken up in the contemplation of it, that he hardly interested himself in the child's studies. And he was a clever boy too. An old pensioned professor, Márton Kupeczky, gave him lessons every day, and was full of his praises.