other at the horse fair is, however, quite an aristocratic custom!"

"Still more so at the cattle market, so I would recommend you to use your eyeglass while you are with us, for when once you have driven off your cattle I am no longer responsible."

"Thanks for the warning," said the manager.

Here the doctor interrupted the discussion.

"Come out, gentlemen," he cried, "in front of the kitchen, and see the sunrise."

The painter rushed forward, and began to sketch, but soon fell into utter despair.

"Why, this is absurd! What colour! dark blue ground, violet mist on the horizon, above it orange sky, and over that a long streak of rosy cloud. What, a purple glory announces the coming of the sun! A glowing fire is rising above the sharply defined horizon! Just like a burning pyramid, now like red hot iron! Yet not so dazzling that one cannot look at it with the naked eye. Now look, do! The sun is five-sided, the upper part grows egg-shaped! The lower contracts, the top flattens out, now it is quite like a mushroom! No, no, a Roman urn. This is absurd, it can't be painted. Now there comes a thin cloud which turns it into a blindfolded cupid, or a bearded deputy. No! If I painted the sun five-sided and with a moustache they would shut me up in an asylum."

The painter threw down his brushes.

"These Hungarians," he said, "must always have something out of the common. Here they are giving us a sunrise which is a reality, but at the same time an impossibility. That is not as it should be."

The doctor began to explain that this was only an optical delusion, like the fata morgana, and was due to the refraction of the rays through the differently heated strata of the atmosphere.

"All the same it is impossible," said the painter. "Why, I can't believe what I see."

But the sun did not leave him in wonder much longer. Hitherto, the whole display had been but a dazzling effect of mirage, and when the real orb rose with floods of light, the human eye could no longer gaze at it with impunity. Then the rosy heavens suddenly brightened into gold, and the line of the horizon appeared to melt into the sky.

At the first flash of sunlight the whole sleeping camp stirred. The forest of horns of fifteen hundred cattle moved. The old bull shook the bell at his neck, and at its sound uprose the puszta chorus. One thousand five hundred cattle began to low.

"Splendid! Good Lord," exclaimed the painter ecstatically. "This is a Wagner chorus! Oboes, hunting horns, kettledrums! What an overture! What a scene! It is a finale from the Götterdämmerung!"

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Sajgató. "But now they are going to the well. Every cow is calling her calf, that is why they are lowing."

Three herdsmen ran to the well—the beam of which testified to the skill of the carpenter—and setting the three buckets in motion, emptied the water into the large drinking trough—fatiguing work which has to be done three times a day.

"Would it not be simpler to use some mechanism worked by horse-power?" inquired the German gentleman of the overseer.

"We have such a machine," he replied, "but the cowboy would rather wear out his own hands than frighten his horse with it."

Meanwhile a fourth cowboy had been occupied in picking out those cows which belonged to Mr. Sajgató, and in removing their calves, which he drove into the corral, the mothers following them meekly into the fenced enclosure.

"These are mine," said Mr. Sajgató.

"But how can the herdsman tell among a thousand cattle which belong to Mr. Sajgató?" asked the manager of the stables. "How do you know one from the other?"

The overseer cast a compassionate glance over his shoulder at the questioner.

"Has the gentleman ever seen two cows just alike?"

"To my eyes they are all alike."

"But not to the herdsman's," said the overseer.

The manager, however, professed himself perfectly satisfied with the selected cattle.

The barrow-boy now came up, and announced that from the look-out tree he had seen the other cowherd coming up at a gallop.

"Running his horse!" growled the overseer. "Just let him show his face here. I'll thrash him till he forgets even his own name."

"But you won't really strike him?"

"No, for whoever beats a cowherd will have to kill him before he cures him in that way, and he's my favourite lad too! I brought him up and christened him. He is my godson, the rascal!"

"Yet you part with him? He is taking the herd to Moravia!"

"Yes," said the overseer. "Just because I have a leaning towards the boy. I don't like the way he is going on—head over ears in love with that pale-faced girl at the Hortobágy inn. 'Tis a bad business. The girl has a sweetheart already. A csikós, who is away soldiering; and if he comes home on leave and the lads meet, it will be like two angry bulls who mean business. Much better that he should go away and take to some pretty little Annie up there, and forget all about his yellow rose."

In the meantime the veterinary had examined every beast separately, and had made out a certificate for each. Then the taligás marked the buyer's initials in vermilion on their hides—for all the herdsmen can write.

The clattering hoofs of the horse which carried the cowboy could now be heard. His sleepiness had vanished with the sharp ride, and the morning air had cleared his head. He sprang smartly from the saddle, at some distance from the corral, and came up leading his horse by the bridle.

"You rag-tag and bobtail!" called out the overseer from the front of the enclosure. "Where the devil have you been?"

Not a word said the lad, but slipped the saddle and bridle off his horse. It was white with foam, and taking a corner of his coat he rubbed its chest, wiped it down, and fastened on the halter.

"Where were you? by Pontius Pilate's copper angel! Coming an hour behind the gentry you should have brought with you. Eh, scoundrel?"

Still the lad was silent, fiddled with the horse, and hung saddle and bridle on the rack.

The overseer's face grew purple. He screamed the louder, "Will you answer me, or shall I have to bore a hole in your ears?"

Then the cowboy spoke. "You know, master, that I am deaf and dumb."

"Damn the day you were born!" cried the overseer.

"Do you think I invented that story that you should mock me? Don't you see the sun is up?"

"Well, is it my fault that the sun is up?"

The others began to laugh, while the overseer's wrath increased.

"Take care, you blackguard, better not attempt to trifle with me, for if I once lay hands on you, I'll mangle you like unbleached linen."

"I'll be there too, you bet!"

"Indeed you won't, rascal," exclaimed the overseer, who himself could not help laughing. "There! talk to him in German any of you who can!"

The manager of the stables thereupon thought he might have a talk with the herdsman in German.

"You're a fine strong fellow!" he said, "I wonder they didn't make an Hussar of you. Why did they not enlist you? What defect could they find?"

The cowboy made a wry grimace, for peasant lads do not much care for those sort of questions.

"I think they did not take me for a soldier," he answered, "because there are two holes in my nose."

"There, you see, he can't talk sense!" exclaimed the overseer. "Clear out, you betyár, to the watering—not there! What did I tell you? Are you tipsy? Can't you see the cows are all corralled, and who