He made large profits, for he undertook large concerns, but he was never tempted to steal or lie, for he never risked anything. He shared the profit with those on whom it depended whether he received a contract on reasonable terms, and in this way kept the source always open.
Once he began to buy up vineyards on the Monostor, the highest point of Komorn. It is a sandhill lying above Uj-Szöny, and its wines are very poor. But notwithstanding this, Timar bought ten acres of vine-growing land there.
This excited attention in the commercial world. What could he want with it? There must be some sort of gold mine there.
Herr Brazovics thought he was on the right track, and attacked Katschuka on his own ground. "Now, my dear son, tell me the truth; I swear by my soul and my honor that I will not betray it to a creature. Confess now, the government is going to build fortifications on the Monostor? That fellow Timar is buying up all the land: don't let us leave him the whole mouthful. It is so, isn't it—they are going to build a fort there?"
The captain allowed the acknowledgment to be got out of him that there might be something in it. The council of war had decided to extend the fortifications of Komorn in that direction. There could be no better news for Athanas. How many hundred thousand gulden had he made in similar circumstances by buying hovels before the expropriation, and selling them afterward to the government at the price of palaces? Only he would certainly like to have seen the plans, and begged his future son-in-law as prettily as possible to let him have just one peep at them.
Katschuka did him that favor too, and thus Athanas learned what portion would be bought by government. And that wretch of a Timar had really pitched on the place where the fort was to be built.
"And what are to be the terms of the expropriation?"
That was the question, and that the captain could not reveal without committing a capital crime. But he did it. The terms were, that the government would pay double the last purchase money.
"Now I know enough," cried Herr Athanas, embracing his son-in-law; "the rest is my affair. On your wedding-day the hundred thousand gulden will be on your table."
But he was wrong in thinking that he knew enough. He would have done well to ask one more question. Herr Katschuka, after saying so much, would have told him that too. But Katschuka no longer cared much about the hundred thousand gulden, nor yet about what depended on them. It he gets them, all right; if not, his hair will not turn gray for lack of them.