“Why not?” said her brother; “it is right to fight for your rights, and if they bother me or try to crowd me off, I will fight till I die.”

But Irma shook her head at him.

“Well, never mind just now,” she cried.  “Listen to the noise.  That is Jacob singing; isn’t it awful?  Are you going in?”

“Yes, I am.  Here is my money, Irma, and that is for—­that brute.  Give it to Paulina for him.  I can hardly keep my knife out of him.  Some day—­” The boy closed his lips hard.

“No, no, Kalman,” implored his sister, “that must not be, not now nor ever.  This is not Russia, or Hungary, but Canada.”

The boy made no reply.

“Hurry and wash yourself and come out.  They will want you to sing.  I shall wait for you.”

“No, no, go on.  I shall come after.”

A shout greeted the girl as she entered the crowded room.  There was no one like her in the dances of her people.

“It is my dance,” cried one.

“Not so; she is promised to me.”

“I tell you this mazurka is mine.”

So they crowded about her in eager but good-natured contention.

“I cannot dance with you all,” cried the girl, laughing, “and so I will dance by myself.”

At this there was a shout of applause, and in a moment more she was whirling in the bewildering intricacies of a pas seul followed in every step by the admiring gaze and the enthusiastic plaudits of the whole company.  As she finished, laughing and breathless, she caught sight of Kalman, who had just entered.

“There,” she exclaimed, “I have lost my breath, and Kalman will sing now.”

Immediately her suggestion was taken up on every hand.

“A song!  A song!” they shouted.  “Kalman Kalmar will sing!  Come, Kalman, ‘The Shepherd’s Love.’” “No, ‘The Soldier’s Bride.’” “No, no, ‘My Sword and my Cup.’”

“First my own cup,” cried the boy, pressing toward the beer keg in the corner and catching up a mug.

“Give him another,” shouted a voice.

“No, Kalman,” said his sister in a low voice, “no more beer.”

But the boy only laughed at her as he filled his mug again.

“I am too full to sing just now,” he cried; “let us dance,” and, seizing Irma, he carried her off under the nose of the disappointed Sprink, joining with the rest in one of the many fascinating dances of the Hungarian people.

But the song was only postponed.  In every social function of the foreign colony, Kalman’s singing was a feature.  The boy loved to sing and was ever ready to respond to any request for a song.  So when the cry for a song rose once more, Kalman was ready and eager.  He sprang upon a beer keg and cried, “What shall it be?”

“My song,” said Irma, who stood close to him.

The boy shook his head.  “Not yet.”