would do him.

One day the governor put a book in his hands. "Here," said he, "little brother Michael, you know how to read now, and the king's reader is ill. Suppose you were to try and get his place; it would be a fine thing for you."

"Reader!" said Miska. "Do I want his place? What should I gain by it? It would be a great deal better if I could go out hunting sometimes; my eyes see green when the horns are sounded, and here I have to be 'selling acorns.'"[8]

[8] Sticking at home.

[8]

"That will come, too, in time, Michael," said the governor; "but now give your attention to this book. There are some very fine stories in it, and I should like, when His Highness the King comes, to have some one who can read well and intelligently to him; for His Highness says that I read like a Slovack clerk, and yet none of my family were ever Slovacks, or ever lived on kása."[9]

[9] Kása, the chief food of the Slovack peasants, is made of millet or potatoes boiled in milk.

[9]

[Pg 74]What was to be done? At first Michael read the book with reluctance, and merely because he was obliged to do so; but later on he became more and more interested. Presently he felt as if at last he knew what was the good of writing and reading.

[Pg 74]

When he had read the book to the end, he actually asked for another; and at last, whenever he had any spare time, he crept away and seated himself in one of the pretty arbours of the castle garden, and read as hard as if he were to be paid for it.

If Miska had been like many another lad, he would have seen pretty well the whole of his career by this time. There was nothing more to be done; for a page who can read and write, and swallows books as eagerly as a pelican does fish, already knows more than enough for his position. For these things are often rather a hindrance to his riding and other duties, and it is not his business to give an account of the books he reads, but of the work entrusted to him to do. The governor trusted all sorts of things to Miska, however.

"Eh," Miska began to think to himself, "I am not cut out for a page now. These second-rank pages are really not much better than grooms, and the governor still expects me to clean the king's two favourite[Pg 75] horses. Why, I'm sure 

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