hardly half an hour after him. Call him here."

[Pg 27]In a few moments the lad was standing in the presence of the great king, though he was far enough from guessing whom he was talking with.

[Pg 27]

"It is you, the horseman?" said Miska. "Well, it is not my fault that I am still here. I have been urging Mr. Governor enough, I can tell you. I might have been ever so long on my way by this time, and they haven't yet changed my rags or given me a horse."

"Have you had a good feed?"

"Yes, I have; but I did not dare drink any wine."

"Why not, gossip?"

"That's a foolish question," returned the lad calmly, while the governor turned pale at his audacity. "Why, sir, because it is six months since I had any, and it would go to my head; and a tipsy messenger is like a clerk without hands—they both pipe the same tune."

"Good," said the king, amused. "Then didn't you stop anywhere on the way? You could hardly lift your feet when you started, and you see I had not much faith in you, and came after you."

"Well," said the lad, looking boldly up at Matthias, "to be sure you are a strong-built chap, and I believe you could swallow Mr. Governor here if you were[Pg 28] angry; but if your eyes had been starting out of your head with hunger as mine were, I believe you would have been sitting in some csárda [wayside inn] till now. Stop anywhere? The idea of such a thing! As if any one who had business needing haste entrusted to him would think of stopping to rest!"

[Pg 28]

"Listen, Miska," said the king. "Would you like to be something better than you are now?"

"Hja!" said the beggar, "I might soon be that certainly, for at present I am not worth even so much as a Jew's harp."

"Let us hear, gossip; what would you like to be?"

"Like? Well, really, sir, I have never given it a thought. Hm! what I should like to be? But then, could it be now—at once?"

"That depends upon the extent of your wishes; for you might wish to be governor of Visegrád, and in that case the answer would be, 'Hold in your greyhounds' [don't be in too much hurry]."

"I shouldn't care to be 

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