Meanwhile those of his cronies who ventured to peep back through the doorway, heard a great bang as Bandi Kutyfalvi's huge carcase smote the floor, and saw the big, powerful man lying motionless beneath his opponent, who kept him down with his knee, and pummelled him from head to foot, as he had been wont to pummel others when they quarrelled with him in their cups. Every one was delighted that his turn had now come, and when at last Mike Kis let go his collar and left him lying at full length on the floor, they carried the avenger of their long years of contumely round the room, and drank his health in bumpers till break of day.
Kutyfalvi, however, whom, after this little joke was over, the servants removed from the room and tucked up nicely in bed, dreamt that he fell down from the top of a high mountain into a quarry, the jagged stones of which smashed all his limbs into little bits, and, on waking, was greatly astonished that he should still feel the effects of his dream.
From that day forth Mike Kis became Master Jock's prime favourite, and the sworn comrade of every gentleman who lived in the neighbourhood. Nay, even when the Hungarian Diet assembled at Pressburg in 1823, and Master Jock, with great reluctance, forsook his dogs, his cronies, his zanies, his heydukes, and peasant-wenches, in order to attend to his legislative duties, he could not find it in his heart to part with Mike, so he took the lad along with him to Pressburg. This, however, may only have been part of the joke. How comical it would be, for instance, to introduce the pseudonymous young gentleman to the various noblemen and gentlemen assembled there! Nay, better still, some young countess or other might fall over head and ears in love with the handsome youth, and
what a capital jest it would then be to exhibit the fellow in the scarlet livery of a heyduke, whose duty it is to climb up behind the carriage when his master goes out for a drive!
So Michael Kis made his appearance in the midst of the elegant society of Pressburg, and his merry humour and handsome, manly figure, backed up by the best letters of introduction, made him a general favourite. Polite society had a peculiar phraseology in those days. Rudeness used to be called frankness; bad language, originality; violence, manliness; and frivolity, nonchalance. To Mike, therefore, was attributed a whole host of good qualities, and the only alteration required of him was that he should wear an attila instead of a mente. He was a gentleman by birth, and that was enough. Every one admired, not his mind, indeed—they troubled themselves very little about that in those days—but his manly bearing, his rosy cheeks, his muscular figure, his sparkling eyes, his black moustache, which are of far more account than any amount of learning. And all the while Master Jock was laughing in his sleeve, for the red Whitsun Day was drawing near, and most of the young noblemen were hail-fellow-well-met with Mike Kis; and here and there you might even hear dear, thoughtful mammas making inquiries about the circumstances of the fine young fellow whom they were by no means indisposed to see hovering around their darling daughters; nay, more than one of them confided in a whisper to her bosom friends that she had good cause to suspect that the fine young fellow in question had serious intentions.
Such secrets have a way of spreading like wildfire, and old Kárpáthy began to suffer from the drollest paroxysms. Sometimes, in the gravest society, he would commence ha-ha-ha-ing at the top of his voice. At such moments he was reflecting that in a very few days the much-befêted cavalier would
turn out to be nothing but his heyduke! Many a time he would sit up in bed to laugh; nay, once, in the House itself, in full session, when the galleries were filled with the élite of society, and the protocols were being read, the old gentleman, observing how the ladies were regarding the handsome figure of Mike, as he stood amongst a group of young nobles, with all their eyes—the old gentleman, I say, was so overcome thereby that he burst into an irrestrainable fit of laughter on the spot, for which he was called to order and fined. He paid the fine immediately, but he had to pay it over double before the day was over, for he could not restrain his laughter when he bethought him of the near-approaching dénoûment of this humorous masquerade.
And at last rosy Whitsun Day, most comical of days, arrived. Kárpáthy had ordered a great and costly supper to be laid in the park beyond the Danube, to which he invited every one who was at all intimate with Mike. What a splendid joke it will be to present the hero of so many a triumph to the company as—a lackey! Master Jock would not have parted with his joke for an empire.
The clock had just struck a quarter to four. According to the compact, the Whitsun King ought now to be waiting there in the antechamber, and Master Jock ordered him to be shown in.
"What new sort of manners do you call this?" cried Mike as he entered the room, flinging himself into an armchair; "why do you keep an honourable man waiting ten minutes in your antechamber?"