more interested than ever.

"Ah, that--that is quite another matter," answered the Count, reddening
perceptibly as he remembered Akulina's furious abuse.

"If you do not, I have no doubt that she will," said Dumnoff, taking
another sip. "She always gives the news of you, before you come in the
morning, before we have made our first hundred."

The Count grew redder still, the angry colour mantling in his lean cheeks.
He hesitated a moment, and then made up his mind.

"If that is likely to happen," he cried, "I had better tell you the truth
myself, instead of giving her an opportunity of distorting it."

"Much better," said the Cossack, eagerly. "One can believe you better than
her."

"That is true, at all events," chimed in Dumnoff, who was only brutal and
never malicious.

"Well, it happened in this way. Fischelowitz and I were talking of
to-morrow, I think, when she came in from the back shop, having overheard
something we had been saying. Of course she immediately took advantage of
my presence to exercise her wit upon me, a proceeding to which I have
grown accustomed, seeing that she is only a woman. Then Fischelowitz told
her to choose her language, and that started her afresh. It was rather a
fine specimen of chosen language that she gave us, for she has a good
command of our beautiful mother-tongue. She found very strong words, and
she said among other things that it was my fault that her husband had got
a Wiener Gigerl for fifty marks of good money. And then Fischelowitz, in
his easy way and while she was talking, wound the doll up and set it
before him on the counter and smiled at it. But she went on, worse than
before, and called me everything under the sun. Of course I could do
nothing but wait until she had finished, for I could not beat her, and I
would not let her think that she could drive me away by mere talk, bad as
it was."

"What did she call you?" asked Dumnoff, with a grin.

"She called me a good-for-nothing," said the Count, reddening with anger
again, so that the veins stood out on his throat above his collar. "And
she called me, I think, an adventurer."

"Is that all?" laughed Dumnoff. "I have been called by worse names than
that in my time!"

"I have not," answered the Count, with sudden coolness. "However, between
me and Fischelowitz and the Gigerl, she grew so angry that she struck the
only one of us three against whom she dared lift hand. That member of the
company chanced to be t