The heydukes had raised into the air by its four legs the table on which the jester lay, and were carrying it round the room, amidst the bellowing of long-drawn-out dirges; behind them marched the poet, with the table-cloth tied round his neck by way of mantle, declaiming d--d bad Alexandrine verses on the spur of the moment; while Master Jock himself had shouldered a fiddle (he always carried one about with him wherever he went), and was dashing off one _friss-magyar_ after another with all the grace and dexterity of a professional gipsy fiddler, at the same time making the two little peasant girls dance in front of him with a couple of the heydukes.
At this moment the stranger burst into the room.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," he cried, "I have the honour to salute you!" The tumult instantly subsided.

Every one gazed open-mouthed at the stranger who had suddenly appeared in their midst, and saluted them with such affability.

Master Jock let his fiddle-bow fall from his hand, for though he loved a practical joke to excess, he did not like strangers to see him at it.

But the new-comer was not a stranger for long, for the jester, surprised at the sudden silence, looking up, and perceiving a gentleman attired not altogether unlike himself, thought fit to come to life again, and, springing from his bier, rushed towards the stranger, embraced and kissed him, and exclaimed-- "My dear brother, Heaven has surely sent you hither!" At this mad idea the laughter burst forth anew.
"Ah! ce drole de gipsy!" said the stranger, trying to free himself from the gipsy's embraces.

"That's quite enough; kiss me no more, I say." Then he bowed all round to the distinguished company, wiped away all traces of the gipsy's kisses with his pocket-handkerchief, and said-- "Do not derange yourselves on my account, ladies and gentlemen; pursue your diversions, I beg! I am not in the habit of spoiling fun.