Part 8 (2/2)
”You mustn't believe all the yarns he chooses to tell you,” said Topay.
”What!” inquired Raining. ”Had he then no communications with the French and English Courts?”
”No more than his grandmother.”
”Then how about those treasures of which he spoke?”
”He himself has never seen them, and he only talked about them to give you a higher opinion of him.”
”And his castle in the puszta, and his seventeen companies of freebooters?”
”He invented them entirely for your honour's edification. The freebooter is no fool, he lives in no castle in the puszta, but in a simple village as modest Mr. Kokenyesdi, and his seventeen companies scarcely amount to more than seventeen hundred men.”
”Then why did he consent so easily to take only seventeen hundred thalers?”
”Because he does not mean to give his lads a single farthing of it.”
Raining shook his head, and grumbled to himself all the way home.
In a week's time they sent to Kokenyesdi the stipulated money. Raining, moreover, fearing lest the fellow might forget the fixed time, did not hesitate to go personally to Vasarhely, to seek him at his own door.
There stood Master Kokenyesdi in his thres.h.i.+ng-floor, picking his teeth with a straw.
”Good-day,” said the quartermaster.
”If it's good, eat it,” murmured Kokenyesdi to himself.
”Don't you know me?”
”Blast me if I do.”
”Then don't you remember what you promised at the Baratfa inn?”
”I don't know where the Baratfa inn is.”
”Then haven't you received the seventeen hundred thalers?”
”What should I receive seventeen hundred thalers for?”
”Don't joke, the appointed time has come.”
”What appointed time?”
”What appointed time? And you who have to be at Grosswardein with seventeen hundred men!”
”Seventeen oxen and seventeen herdsmen on their backs, I suppose you mean.”
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