“Did you learn to sit slouching thus at Kubista’s,” he said after a while, as if indifferently.
“I cannot always be here merely to be stared at by you,” said Uncle John, as he got up from the table and left the room.
It was well that he left the room, and happy for him that grandfather hobbled on one foot. Grandfather was not aware certainly that he held a knife in his hand, but sure enough he would have hurried after Uncle John with the first thing he got hold of. And perhaps he would actually have run after him had not the bystanders withheld him.
Grandmother trembled all over, but she saw that speaking would be of no avail. But for us children the sitting was over so to say, just as if the word had been passed round, we dispersed in flight to the farm-yard, and troubled our heads no further about what was doing in the dining hall.
We just caught a glimpse of Uncle John as he passed out by the gate.
In the afternoon we went to spend the coppers we had collected from our uncles at the Hostinets k poutavé Babê (hostelry sign of the Pilgrim Grandmothers). Boys with plenty of goodies trouble themselves about nothing in the whole world. But for me I saw very well how Uncle John ordered song after song, and how he drank and danced more than anyone at the Hostinets.
In the evening everyone poured out of the alehouse—children first of all, after them the music, after the music Uncle John, accompanied by a bevy of gay young men, and last of all the old women. Uncle John, be it under-
