"Oh! I take it, you are here then for the taxation commission?"
It was an office which had at that time but an unenviable reputation in Hungary.
"More pressing business still," answered the young man with a smile, as he whispered something in the old gentleman's ear, which was evidently an important disclosure.
"Now that's something like; that's capital! Now I can reckon you a man. Only don't neglect the work."
"And then don't begin among the lesser folk, but get hold of the great people. Go straight to the prefect himself; he's the one to tackle. Ay, I could give you some good advice. Hear all, see all, and hold your tongue, as the saying goes. But you know all about that, and have no need of a plaster over your mouth."
"Yet if I find the guilty, I shall not spare them, I warn you, whoever they be."
"You will see, my boy," said the old gentleman, rubbing his hands, "if you tackle the prefect properly, you will be court judge of Visegrád, year in and year out." And he clapped his nephew on the shoulder.
"What kind of a berth is it in Visegrád?"
"Ay, my boy, that's the fattest plum in the neighbourhood; it's worth more than a hundred county court magistracies, and it happens to be just vacant."
"What a stiff-necked man it is to be sure! Didn't you get to Vienna? You don't surely reckon yourself among those people who let themselves be cajoled by the gift of a fine horse or a roll of ducats: a man like you is worthy a bigger bribe."
"But, my uncle, I don't come for that--for the sake of a horse or money, or even a court magistracy, not to be bribed by the great, but rather to redress the grievances of the folk who are oppressed, and to rectify abuses."
At this speech Mr. Leányfalvy shifted his zouave from the left to the right shoulder.
"Don't you know, my dear boy, that out of the mouth of the poor, complaints are not heard. There must be a God who hears them, nevertheless. Yet the government is a power against which one man can avail nothing. How can you protect the sown fields from the marmots? Man is just such a marmot. Dismiss him who is now in office, and put another in his place; you only change for the worse. As long as there are fools and knaves in the world, so long will the one always rob the other."