Yet I felt like one who is a little tipsy.
"Have you any appetite?" inquired Pepi scornfully.
"Just enough to eat a gingerbread-hussar like you."
Lorand laughed uncontrollably at this remark of mine.
"Gingerbread-hussar! you have got it from him, Pepi."
I was quite flushed with pride at being able to make Lorand laugh.
But Pepi, on the contrary, became quite serious.
"Ho, ho, old fellow," (when he spoke seriously to me he always addressed me "old fellow," and on other occasions as "my child"). "Never be afraid of me; now Lorand might have reason to be: we both want what is ready; we do not court your little girl, but her mother. If the old wigged councillor is not jealous of us, don't you be so."
I expected Lorand to smite that fair mouth for this despicable calumny.
Instead of which he merely said, half muttering: