It was an agreeable place; from afar it betrayed itself by that sweet confectionery smell, which makes a man imagine that if he breathes it in long enough he will satisfy his hunger therewith. Everything in the whole place was as white as snow; everything so clean; great bins full of flour; huge vessels full of swelling dough, from which six white-dressed, white-aproned assistants were forming every conceivable kind of cake and bun; piled upon the shelves of the gigantic white oven the first supply was gradually baking, filling the whole room with a most agreeable odor.
Master Márton, when he caught sight of me, began to welcome me in a kind of broken Hungarian "Jo reggelt jo reggelt!"[13]
[13] Good morning.
He had a curious knack of putting the whole of his scalp into motion whenever he moved his eyebrows up or down; a comical peculiarity of which he availed himself whenever he wished to make anyone laugh, and saw that his words did not have the desired effect.
Henrik set to work and competed with the baker's assistants; he was clever at making dainty little titbits of cakes quite as clever as anyone there; and pleasure beamed on his face when the old assistant praised his efforts.
"You see," Márton said to me, "what a ready assistant he would make! In two years he might be free. But the old man is determined he shall learn and study; he wants to make a councillor of him." With these words Márton, by a movement of his eyebrows, sent the whole of the skin on his head to form a bunch on the crown, for all the world as if it had been a wig on springs.
"Councillor, indeed! a councillor who gnaws pens when he is hungry! Thanks; not if they gave me the tower of St. Michael. A councillor, who, with paper in hand and pen behind ear, goes to visit the bakers in turn, and weighs their loaves in the balance to see if they are correct weight."
It seemed that Márton did not take into consideration any other duties that a councillor might have besides the examining of bakers' loaves—and that one could hardly gain his approval.
"Yet, if you take a little pains for their sake, you will find them as gentle as lambs. Give them a 'heitige striozts,'[14] or All Saints Day, and you will secure your object. Such is Mr. Dintenklek." At this point Márton could not refrain from breaking out into an unmelodious "Gassenhauer"[15] the refrain of which was, "Alas! Mr. Dintenklek."
[14] A kind of dainty bit suitable to this "holy" occasion.