howl of despair that the offer had not come earlier, for how could a
dying man leave his bed to vote? But my drummers were not to be beaten.
They caught up the bedstead with the sufferer on it, and hastened with
it to the tent where the votes were collected. The dying man had been
made to understand that the bill of 1,000 florins which he saw would be
given to his wife, if he would only pronounce my name when asked to whom
he gave his vote, and he hold tight to his wife's hand, and met her
appealing glance with something like assurance. Happily, he was still
alive when brought to the urn, and the drummers announced that "the poor
man was troubled in his conscience, and could not die unless the
opportunity of fulfilling his patriotic duty was afforded him, so that
he had begged them to bring him to the tent and allow him to vote." This
touching little piece of news was received in the spirit in which it had
been given, and just as the poor fellow in his agony was asked the name
of his chosen candidate, Death came to claim his own. With a last look
of sorrow and affection at his wife he sighed with his dying breath, "Du
mein liebel"[1] ("Thou, my love!"), and expired.

[Footnote 1: The Jews in Hungary usually speak German among themselves.]

"'Nelly Dumany! Dumany Nelly!' he said," cried my drummers--"Nelly"
being an abbreviation of Kornel, my Christian name--and since the "Du
meine" really sounded like "Dumany" and not at all like "Belacsek," the
candidate of the other party, and since the dead man could not be made
to repeat his vote, whereas my drummers were ready to take their oath of
the correctness of their assertion, the vote was credited to me, and I
was declared elected by a majority of one vote, my suffrages being 1,501
in number, whereas my adversary had received only 1,500.

The case was afterward contested, and some witnesses endeavoured to