CHAPTER XVI.
LEANDER BABEROSSY Whenever one carts away a heap of stones which have been lying undisturbed for years, or whenever one removes the shingle-roof of an ancient tenement, or drains off the water from a marshy place, one generally stumbles upon all sorts of hitherto undiscovered, curious beetles, odd looking moths and spiral-shaped, creeping things in these routed out lurking places, which nobody ever saw before or read of in the natural history books; and at such times a man bethinks him how wonderful it is of Mother Nature to provide even such holes and corners as these with living inhabitants which never see the light of day at all.
Once, while on circuit, Vamhidy was obliged to lie one night at a village within his jurisdiction whose inhabitants were a strong mixture of Hungarian, Servian and Wallachian ingredients.

Arriving late, it was a long time before he could go to sleep, and he was awakened rather late next morning by an unusual hubbub.

His bedchamber was only separated from the large drinking room by a door and through this door broke every now and then very peculiar sounds the meaning of which, on a first hearing, it was very difficult to explain.
It sounded as if a couple of women and a couple of men were roundly abusing one another, sometimes in a low tone and sometimes in a loud, and the most peculiar thing about the whole business was that two of them never spoke at once but each one of them allowed each of the others to have his say out to the end.

All at once the noise grew more alarming and broken outbursts plainly suggested that someone in the adjoining room wanted to murder somebody else.

Vamhidy leaped from his bed and was about to intervene when in came the landlord with his coffee.
"What is that row going on next door ?" enquired Szilard irritably.
"Oh, I cry your honour's pardon," replied the innkeeper with a proud smile, "it is only our actors.