Madame Langai, the old man's widowed daughter, disputes
the validity of the last will--whereby Mr. John Lapussa becomes heir to
the exclusion of everybody else, and has instituted legal proceedings to
upset it. Madame Langai seeks to prove that old Lapussa was _non compos
mentis_ when he disinherited the other members of his family, and she
also maintains, that the old fellow had no reason whatever for hating
his grandchildren and reducing them to beggary as he has done. On the
other hand, Mr. John maintains that his dear father had excellent
reasons for detesting his grandchildren because the Baroness Hatszegi
has never written a letter to her grandfather since her marriage and
both she and her husband have expressed themselves, at home, in the most
disrespectful terms imaginable concerning the old gentleman, even giving
it to be understood that they would be very glad if they had not to wait
too long for the curtain to fall on the fifth act of his life's drama.
He calls as his witness one Margari, who was formerly old Lapussa's
reader before the girl was married, and since then has been compelled
to act as secretary to Hatszegi, or rather as a spy upon him. This
fellow, who is now the mere tool of Mr. John, is quite prepared to
retail all sorts of horrors about the Hatszegis. As to the other
grandchild, the boy Koloman I mean, his uncle has saddled him with a
terrible charge.
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