"But starvation will be a difficult matter where the garrison is well nourished."
The poor gypsy girl did not understand a word of all this jesting, which was uttered for her edification: and if she had understood it, was she not a gypsy girl, just to be sported with in this manner?
Were not Topándy and his comrades wont to jest with her after this manner.
But Czipra did not laugh over these jests as much as she had done at other times.
It exercised a distasteful influence upon her heart, when this young dandy spoke so lightly of Melanie, and even slighted her before the eyes of another girl. Did all men speak so of their loved ones? And do men speak so of every girl?
Topándy turned the conversation. He knew his man at the first glance: he had many weak sides. He began to "my lord" him, and made inquiries about those foreign princes, whose plenipotentiary minister M. Gyáli was pleased to be.
That had its effect.
Gyáli became at once a different person: he strove to maintain an imposing bearing with a view to raising his dignity, for all the world as if he had swallowed a poker; he straightened his eyebrows, put his hands behind him under the tails of his lilac-colored dress-coat and formed his mouth into the true diplomatic shape.
It was a supreme opportunity for being able to display his grandiose achievements. Let that other see how high he had flown, while others had remained fastened to the earth.
"I have just concluded a splendid business for his Excellency, the Prince of Hohenelm-Weitbreitstein."