at least will be one day. I suppose you don't want to carry it away with you in your coffin?"
"In my coffin!" shouted the old man, deeply agitated, and his face suddenly turned pale. "What! In my coffin! Do you speak of coffins to me?"
"Of course I do. Why, you've one leg in your coffin already, and banquets, parties, and peasant-girls are dragging the other one in too, and thus all will be mine, and I shan't owe you a thank you, for it."
"Hie! my coachman!" thundered old Kárpáthy, springing from his chair, and at that moment his face wore an almost heroic expression, "get ready my conveyance. We'll depart—depart this instant. Let nobody breathe the air of this room any longer."
Abellino laughed aloud at the old fellow's impotent rage.
"Come, come, don't be so furious," he said. "Why échauffer yourself? You only give the apoplexy a quicker chance. Come, come, my good old boy, don't be waxy. I can wait, you know. I am quite a juvenile." And with that he stretched himself at full length across three chairs, and began to whistle a fragment of some vaudeville ditty that occurred to his mind.
The heydukes, packing up the things, would have pulled the chairs from under him, but the old man cried—
"Leave everything where it is; I'll touch nothing that that fellow has had aught to do with. Landlord! Where is the man? Everything in this room is his!"
The last words were spoken in so hoarse a voice as to be scarcely intelligible. The jester took his master's hand to prevent him from falling, while the poet led the way.
"You see, it is of no use kicking up a row," said