but dangerous implement.

"I didn't prick you, did I?" she asked, looking at me with those large eyes of hers which seemed to speak of such goodness of heart.

"No," I said; yet I felt the prick of that needle even then.

Then we went on dancing. I distinguished myself marvellously. With a needle-prick in my knee, and another who knows where, I whirled Bessy three times round the room, so that when I brought her back to the garde des dames, it seemed to me as if three-and-thirty mothers, aunts, and companions were revolving around me.

[Pg 7]

[Pg 7]

CHAPTER II

MY FIRST DISTINCTION—MY FIRST GRIEVANCE—THE DAMENWALZER—THE FRIGHTFUL MONSTER—THE READJUSTED SCARF—THE SECOND NEEDLE-PRICK

I am really most grateful to Monsieur Galifard. I have to thank him for the first distinction I ever enjoyed in my life. This was the never-to-be-forgotten circumstance that when my colleagues, the young hopefuls of the Academy of Jurisprudence at Kecskemet, gave a lawyers' ball, they unanimously chose me to be the elötánczos.6 To this day I am proud of that distinction; what must I have been then? On the heels of this honour speedily came a second. The very same year, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, on the occasion of the competition for the Teleki prize, honourably mentioned my tragedy, "The Jew Boy," and there were even two competent judges, Vörösmarty and Bajza,7 who considered it worthy of the prize.... When, therefore, I returned to my native town, after an[Pg 8] absence of three years, I found that a certain renommée had preceded me. I had also very good reasons for returning home. The legal curriculum in my time embraced four years. The third year was given to the patveria, the fourth year to the jurateria.8 Every respectable man goes through the patveria in his own country, but the jurateria at Buda-Pest.

[Pg 8]

[6] The dancer who leads off the ball.

[6]

[7] Two of the most eminent Hungarian poets.

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