He turned in at the entrance to the Town Hall, where some watering-cans hung from the walls, and a few old rusty implements of torture were exhibited (sic transit gloria mundi!), went up the staircase, and entered a room where the Senators were all assembled round a green baize-covered table, discussing a serious and difficult question.
A most unpleasant thing had happened. One of the watchmen in the Liskovina wood (the property of the town) had arrived there breathlessly not long before, with the news that a well-dressed man had been found hanging on a tree in the wood; what was to be done with the body?
This was what was troubling the worthy Senators, and causing them to frown and pucker their foreheads. Senator Konopka declared that the correct thing to do was to bring the body to the mortuary chapel, and at the same time give notice of the fact to the magistrate, Mr. Mihály Géry, so that he could tell the district doctor to dissect the body.
Galba shook his head. He was nothing if not a diplomat, as he showed in the present instance. He said he considered it would be best to say nothing about it, but to remove the body by night a little further on, to the so-called Kvaka Wood, which was in the Travnik district, and let them find the body. Mravucsán was undecided which of the two propositions to accept. He hummed and hawed and shook his head, and then complained it was hot enough to stifle one, that he had gout in his hand, and that one leg of the Senators' table was shorter than the others. This latter was soon remedied by putting some old deeds under the short leg. Then they waited to see which side would have the majority, and as it turned out it was on Galba's side. But the Galba party was again subdivided into two factions. The strict Galba faction wanted the dead man's body transported to the Travnik district. The moderated Galba faction, headed by András Kozsehuba, would have been contented with merely taking down the body, and burying it under the tree; they wanted, at all costs, to prevent its being carried through the village to the cemetery, which would certainly be the case if the magistrate were informed of the circumstances. For if a suicide were carried through a place, that place was threatened with damage by hail!
"Superstitious rubbish!" burst out Konopka.
"Of course, of course, Mr. Konopka, but who is to help it if the people are so superstitious?" asked Senator Fajka, of the Kozsehuba faction.
Konopka wildly banged the table with his fat, be-ringed hand, upon which every one was quiet.
"It is sad enough to hear a Senator say such a thing! I can assure you, gentlemen, that the Lord will not send His thunder-clouds in our direction just on account of that poor dead body. He will not punish a thousand just men because one unfortunate man has given himself to the devil, especially as the dead man himself would be the only one not hurt by the hail!"
Mravucsán breathed freely again at these wise words, which certainly raised one's opinion of the magistrates; he hastened to make use of the opportunity, and as once the tiny wren, sitting on the eagle's wings, tried to soar higher than the eagle, so did Mravucsán try to rise above the Senators.
"What is true is true," he said, "and I herewith beg to call your attention to the fact that there is nothing to be feared from hail if we bring the body through the town."