Nothing at that moment could have more mightily offended the questioner than this curt answer. What! to tell an enthusiastic huntsman that he will find elsewhere game even finer than what he has just been lauding to the skies; game, too, which the darling of his heart has just slain! It was simply outrageous. "Very well, my son, very well," growled the hero; "we shall see, we shall see!" With obvious marks of annoyance on his face, he turned away from his contradictor, and ordered that the quarry should be conveyed at once to the hunting-box. Not another word did he exchange with any one but his Nelly; but her he literally overwhelmed with compliments and caresses. * * * * * It was already late in the afternoon when the hunters sat them down to a simple but tasty repast spread upon a huge and level grass-plot in the midst of the wood. Wine and merry jests soon set everything right again; they talked of everything at the same time, of war and the chase, of beautiful dames, of poetry (a fashionable subject then amongst the higher classes), and of the intrigues of courts; but even after all this blithe discourse the hero could not quite forget his grievance, and again he inquired impatiently-- "So there really is excellent sport in Transylvania?" The young Transylvanian began to feel this perpetual harping on the same string a little tiresome. He had never meant to be taken so literally. The bald-pate, remarking the growing tension, sought to change the conversation, and raising his beaker proposed the following toast-- "God keep the Turks in a good humour." But the hero angrily overturned his glass. "God grant no such thing!" cried he savagely. "I'm not going to pray for the goggle-eyed dogs now, after fighting against them all my days. The man who is always trying to change masters is a fool." "Yet the Turk is a very gracious master to us," put in the young Transylvanian, with an ambiguous smile. "Ha, ha! didn't I say so? With you, even Turks are bigger and finer than they are with us. Of course! of course! In Transylvania everything flourishes better than in Hungary: the boars are bigger, the Turks are daintier, than they are in this part of the country."