Half an hour later Mike was back again, dressed as a gentleman.
In the drinking-room there was fun enough going on already even without him; for there the rule was, Welcome everybody, and wait for nobody. The master of the house introduced the newly arrived guest as Michael Kis, Esq., lord of the manor of Nadudvár, who, "like a jolly good fellow," had come disguised as an ostler to the Whitsun Kingship competition, and there acquitted himself like a man.
Every one thought this a most original joke. It was plain to every eye, moreover, that he was a gentleman and no boor. All his movements, whether he lolled back on a chair, or leaned his elbows on the table, or chucked his cap in a corner—betyár tricks every one of them—was proof positive that he must have been brought up in good circles. A real betyár would never have dared to lift up his head here; but this fellow,
metaphorically speaking, buttonholed everybody. In a few moments, in fact, Mike had drunk good-fellowship with the whole company, and become as familiar as if he had lived among them all his life.
Meanwhile the eternal bumper began to circulate, and Mike fell to singing a new drinking-song which none of them knew, and the company took it up with spirit; and, more than that, it was better than any they had ever sung before.
Within an hour Mike had become a perfect hero in that genteel circle. In his cups he far outstripped them all; and when it came to card-playing, he won whole heaps of money from all and sundry without moving a muscle of his face, raking the dollars in with as much sangfroid as if he had sacks of them at home. Nay, he even lent a lot to Franky Kalotai, thereby obviously displaying an utter contempt for money, for it was notorious that Franky never paid anything back.
And now the heads of most of the gentlemen engaged in this drinking-bout began to loll about unsteadily. Everybody had got beyond the limit where the good humour begotten of good wine ends and drunkenness begins; when a man no longer tastes his wine, and is only sensible of a giddy hankering for more. At such times Bandi Kutyfalvi was wont to exhibit his ancient tour-de-force, which consisted in swallowing with outstretched neck a whole bumper of wine at one gulp or, to use his own technical expression, without a single hiccough. Now, such a feat naturally requires for its performance an extraordinarily concave and well-practised throat, and, with the exception of Bandi, there were not above one or two others who could successfully accomplish it.
"Why, that's nothing at all!" cried Mike Kis, accomplishing the feat without the slightest
exertion. "But now, let any one try and do what I can do—sing a song and at the same time drain a bumper without leaving off singing."
Now, this was an entirely new trick, and an extremely difficult one to boot; for, to be properly performed, it required not only that the glottis should remain immovable during the passage of the vinous torrent down the throat, but also that the throat should give forth at the same time a clear, uninterrupted voice. Yet Michael Kis performed this feat with masterly dexterity, to the general astonishment, and gave back the bowl for the next man to imitate him.