A Hungarian Nabob | Page 7

be bound to say, and would have paid for the chance of it."
It was a screaming joke, no doubt; yet suddenly the merriment ceased,
for the gipsy all at once began to turn blue and green, his eyes
threatened to start out of his head, he sank down on his chair unable to
speak, but pointed convulsively to his distended mouth.
"Look, look, he's choking!" cried several voices.
The Nabob was terribly alarmed. The joke had taken a decidedly
serious turn.
"Pour wine into his throat to wash it down," he exclaimed.
The heydukes speedily caught up the flasks, and began to fill up the
gipsy's throat with half a bottle at a time to assist the downward
progress of the worthy mouse. After a long time the poor fellow began
to breathe hard, and seemed to recover slightly; but his eyes rolled
wildly, and he was gabbling something unintelligible.

"Well, take your hundred florins," said the frightened Nabob, who
could scarcely contain himself for terror, and wished to comfort and
compensate the gipsy on his return from Charon's ferry-boat.
"Thank you," sobbed the latter, "but there's no need of it now. It is all
up with Vidra; Vidra is dying. If only it had been a wolf that had killed
poor Vidra; but a mouse--oh, oh!"
"Don't be a fool, man! You'll take no harm from it. Look! here's
another hundred. Don't take on so; it has quite gone now! Hit him on
the back, some one, can't you? Bring the venison on now, and make
him swallow some of it!"
The jester thanked them for the thump on the back, and when they set
the venison before him, he regarded it with the doubtful, ambiguous
expression of a spoiled child, who does not know whether to laugh or
to cry. First he laughed, and then he grumbled again, but finally he sat
him down before the savoury cold meat, which had been basted with
the finest lard and flavoured with good cream-like wine sauce, and
began to cram himself full with morsel after morsel so huge that there
was surely never a mouse in the wide world half so big. And thus he
not only filled himself, but satisfied the Nabob also.
And now, at a sign from the Nabob, the heydukes carried in all the cold
dishes they had brought with them, and shoved the loaded table along
till it stood opposite the couch on which he lay. At the lower end of the
table three camp-stools were placed, and on them sat the three
favourites, the jester, the greyhound, and the poet. The Nabob gradually
acquired an appetite by watching these three creatures eat, and by
degrees the wine put them all on the most familiar terms with one
another, the poet beginning to call the gipsy "my lord," while the gipsy
metaphorically buttonholed the Nabob, who scattered petty witticisms
on the subject of the mouse, whereat the two others were obliged to
laugh with all their might.
At last, when the worthy gentleman really believed that it was quite
impossible to play any more variations on the well-worn topic of the
mouse, the gipsy suddenly put his hand to his bosom, and cried with a

laugh, "Here's the mouse!" And with that he drew it forth from the
inside pocket of his frock-coat, where he had shoved it unobserved,
while the terrified company fancied he had swallowed it, and in sheer
despair had soothed him by making him eat and drink all manner of
good things.
"Look, Mat!" said he to the dog, whereupon the greyhound
immediately swallowed the corpus delicti.
"You good-for-nothing rascal!" cried the nobleman, "so you'd bandy
jests with me, would you! I'll have you hanged for this. Here, you
heydukes, fetch a rope! Hoist him upon that beam!"
The heydukes immediately took their master at his word. They seized
the gipsy, who never ceased laughing, mounted him on a chair, threw
the halter round his neck, drew the extreme end of the rope across the
beam, and drew away the chair from beneath him. The gipsy kicked
and struggled, but it was of no avail; there they kept him till he really
began to choke, when they lowered him to the ground again.
But now he began to be angry. "I am dying," he cried. "I am not a fool
that you should hoist me up again, when I can die as I am, like an
honest gentleman."
"Die by all means," said the poet. "Don't be afraid. I'll think of an
epitaph for you."
And while the gipsy flung himself on the ground and closed his eyes,
Gyárfás recited this epitaph over him--
"Here liest thou, gipsy-lad, never to laugh any longer, Another shall
shoulder the fiddle, and death shall himself