Vassilitch, sitting down to the table
and yawning. "Yes, my boy. . . . We have enjoyed ourselves, slept,
and eaten pancakes, and to-morrow comes Lenten fare, repentance,
and going to work. Every period of time has its limits. Why are
your eyes so red? Are you sick of learning your lessons? To be sure,
after pancakes, lessons are nasty to swallow. That's about it."

"What are you laughing at the child for?" Pelageya Ivanovna calls
from the next room. "You had better show him instead of laughing
at him. He'll get a one again to-morrow, and make me miserable."

"What is it you don't understand?" Pavel Vassilitch asks Styopa.

"Why this . . . division of fractions," the boy answers crossly.
"The division of fractions by fractions. . . ."

"H'm . . . queer boy! What is there in it? There's nothing to
understand in it. Learn the rules, and that's all. . . . To divide
a fraction by a fraction you must multiply the numerator of the
first fraction by the denominator of the second, and that will be
the numerator of the quotient. . . . In this case, the numerator
of the first fraction. . . ."

"I know that without your telling me," Styopa interrupts him,
flicking a walnut shell off the table. "Show me the proof."

"The proof? Very well, give me a pencil. Listen. . . . Suppose we
want to divide seven eighths by two fifths. Well, the point of it
is, my boy, that it's required to divide these fractions by each
other. . . . Have they set the samovar?"

"I don't know."

"It's time for tea. . . . It's past seven. Well, now listen. We
will look at it like this. . . . Suppose we want to divide seven
eighths not by two fifths but by two, that is, by the numerator
only. We divide it, what do we get?

"Seven sixteenths."

"Right. Bravo! Well, the trick of it is, my boy, that if we . . .
so if we have divided it by two then. . . . Wait a bit, I am getting
muddled. I remember when I was at school, the teacher of arithmetic
was called Sigismund Urbanitch, a Pole. He used to get into a muddle
over every lesson. He would begin explaining some theory, get in a
tangle, and turn crimson all over and race up and down the class-room
as though someone were sticking an awl in his back, then he would
blow his nose half a dozen times and begin to cry. But you know we
were magnanimous to him, we pretended not to see it. 'What is it,
Sigismund Urbanitch?' we used to ask him. 'Have you got toothache?'
And what a set of young ruffians, regular cu