“With whom? With your wife or the old father?” asked another.
“Well, since you must know,” Nešněra turned to his interlocutor, examining him a few moments as if to decide whether it was worth while to answer him, “with both of them!” “Ho! ho, poor fellow! That surely is a hot bath when not only one’s wife but father as well rip into one,” laughed a young man, but the other, an older man, spoke gravely.
“Well, let it be, Frank. It’s always better if the wife stands with the old father than against him. And especially at Josifek’s house. I don’t know what they quarrelled about, but I’ll wager the old man wasn’t any farther off from the truth than you could make in one jump.”
Joseph looked at the speaker disapprovingly, spat through his teeth, shoved his cap further back on his head, and having seated himself, emptied half the glass which the innkeeper placed before him.
“And to prove that I’m a fortune-teller,” cried the one who had been called ‘Frank,’ “I’ll tell you the cause of the trouble! It was about the homestead, wasn’t it? I’ll bet the old man raised the devil, didn’t he?”
Old Halama, the neighbor who had previously taken the part of Joseph’s father, looked searchingly at the young master of the estate, and when he nodded assent to Frank’s “guess,” he arose from his chair. Halama’s
