"I'll believe anything you like, but there's one circumstance I cannot understand. How is it that nobody disturbs this sweet idyll of yours? Is the one man who is so confoundedly nearly interested in your happiness, is that man still alive? Does Muki Bagotay still exist anywhere in the wide world?"
"Well, if he does, I'll only say that what flows through his veins is milk, not blood. Is he content to carry the horns of his hundred oxen? A rich and powerful landlord, a county magnate, and the master of your ideal peasant!--A thousand lightnings! if I were only in his place!"
Bessy, with a sarcastic smile, folded her hands together above her knees.
"Well, come now! If you were in dear Muki's place what would _you_ do?"
"I'll tell you. I wouldn't call Peter Gyuricza out, but one fine day I would put my democratic principles on the shelf, and collecting my heydukes and my rustics, I'd give chase to the herdsman, trounce him according to his deserts, and kick him out of my employment. I would get another herdsman; but as for my wife, I'd tie her to the pummel of my saddle, and drag her like that to my castle. That's what _I_ would do, were I the husband of Muki Bagotay's wife!"
I had certainly got a little heated. It was only afterwards that I reflected, "What's Hecuba to me? Why should I bother my head about Peter Gyuricza?"
"Ha! ha! ha! You'd have done that to me, would you? You'd have tied me to your horse's tail and whipped me home, eh? How sorry I am then that I did not choose you! What a fine thing it would have been if I could have boasted of bearing the impression of your blows on my body! Tell me now, have you ever struck any one who was unable to hit you back?"
"But let that be! You could not be so good a Muki Bagotay as Muki Bagotay himself would have been if he could. He actually _did_ try the very recipe which you now recommend. The very next day he sent his bailiff with the verbal message to Peter Gyuricza to pack himself off forthwith, but me the bailiff was to bring straight home. The bailiff gave himself airs, and would have used force, so I gave him a sound box on the ears, which he'll not forget in a hurry; whereupon Peter Gyuricza threw him out of the house.