"Surely something heavy as lead is weighing on that man!"
"I don't like the look of his eyes!"
"Could he know aught about the csikós' murder, think you?"
Again the horse-dealer committed the offence of meddling in the discussion.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "permit me to make the humble observation that yesterday, when I was on the Ohát puszta, buying horses, I there saw the murdered and poisoned Sándor Decsi, looking as fresh and blooming as a rosy apple! He lassoed the colts for me. This is as true as I live!"
"What? And you let us sit here telling lies to one another?" stormed the whole assembly. "Here, clear out; get away!"
No sooner said than done, they seized him by the collar and flung him out of the room.
The chucked-out traveller, smoothing his crumpled hat, spluttered and swore, till he found a moral to fit the case.
"Now, need I have exposed myself to that? What is the good of a Jew speaking the truth?"
Meanwhile, the cowherd going to the cattle proposed to the Moravian drovers that they should go inside for a change and drink a glass of wine; he would watch the cows. The chair with the stick beside it was his.