"Then rise superior to your grandpapa!"
"I'll rise superior to him for a hundred florins," said the gipsy, scratching his curly poll.
The Nabob opened the pocket of his dolman, and drew forth a large greasy pocket-book, which he half opened, displaying a number of nice blood-coloured banknotes.
The gipsy squinted with half an eye at the well-crammed pocket-book, and repeated once more—
"For a hundred florins I don't mind doing it!"
"Let us see then!"
The gipsy thereupon unbuttoned the frock-coat
which it was his master's whim he should wear, contracted his rotund, foolish face into a squarish shape, twitched the mobile skin of his head up and down once or twice, whereby the whole forest of his hair moved backwards and forwards like the top-knot of a peewit, and then, seizing the horrible animal by that part of its body which was furthest from its head, and thereby raising it into the air, pulled an ugly, acidulous face, shook his head, constrained himself to a desperate resolution, opened his mouth, shut his eyes, and in an instant the mouse had disappeared.
The gipsy could not speak, but one of his hands involuntarily clutched his throat, for it is no joke to swallow a four-legged animal at a gulp; but his other hand he extended towards the Nabob, gasping with something like a sob—
"The hundred florins!"