stamped his foot angrily.

"Be off! The plague take you!" he cried. "Con-found-ed bea-east!"

Lyska moved aside, sat down, and fixed her solitary eye upon her
master.

"You devils!" he went on. "You are the last straw on my back, you
Herods."

And he looked with hatred at his shed with its crooked, overgrown
roof; there from the door of the shed a big horse's head was looking
out at him. Probably flattered by its master's attention, the head
moved, pushed forward, and there emerged from the shed the whole
horse, as decrepit as Lyska, as timid and as crushed, with spindly
legs, grey hair, a pinched stomach, and a bony spine. He came out
of the shed and stood still, hesitating as though overcome with
embarrassment.

"Plague take you," Zotov went on. "Shall I ever see the last of
you, you jail-bird Pharaohs! . . . I wager you want your breakfast!"
he jeered, twisting his angry face into a contemptuous smile. "By
all means, this minute! A priceless steed like you must have your
fill of the best oats! Pray begin! This minute! And I have something
to give to the magnificent, valuable dog! If a precious dog like
you does not care for bread, you can have meat."

Zotov grumbled for half an hour, growing more and more irritated.
In the end, unable to control the anger that boiled up in him, he
jumped up, stamped with his goloshes, and growled out to be heard
all over the yard:

"I am not obliged to feed you, you loafers! I am not some millionaire
for you to eat me out of house and home! I have nothing to eat
myself, you cursed carcases, the cholera take you! I get no pleasure
or profit out of you; nothing but trouble and ruin, Why don't you
give up the ghost? Are you such personages that even death won't
take you? You can live, damn you! but I don't want to feed you! I
have had enough of you! I don't want to!"

Zotov grew wrathful and indignant, and the horse and the dog listened.
Whether these two dependents understood that they were being
reproached for living at his expense, I don't know, but their
stomachs looked more pinched than ever, and their whole figures
shrivelled up, grew gloomier and more abject than before. . . .
Their submissive air exasperated Zotov more than ever.

"Get away!" he shouted, overcome by a sort of inspiration. "Out of
my house! Don't let me set eyes on you again! I am not obliged to
keep all sorts of rubbish in my yard! Get away!"

The old man moved with little hurried steps to the gate