r
life and wider interests.

The five occupants of the workshop had been working in silence for nearly
half an hour. The two girls on the one side and the two men on the other
kept their eyes bent down upon their fingers, while Johann Schmidt, the
Cossack, plied his guillotine-like knife in the corner. This same Johann
Schmidt, whose real name, to judge from his appearance, might have been
Tarass Bulba or Danjelo Buralbash, and was probably of a similar sound,
was at once the wit, the spendthrift and the humanitarian of the
Fischelowitz manufactory, possessing a number of good qualities in such
abundant measure as to make him a total failure in everything except the
cutting of tobacco. Like many witty, generous and kind-hearted persons in
a much higher rank of existence, he was cursed with a total want of tact.
On the present occasion, having sliced through an unusually long package
of leaves and having encountered an exceptional number of obstacles in
doing so, he thought fit to pause, draw a long breath and wipe the
perspiration from his sallow forehead with a pocket-handkerchief in which
the neutral tints predominated. This operation, preparatory to a rest of
ten minutes, having been successfully accomplished, Tarass Bulba Schmidt
picked up a tiny oblong bit of paper which had found its way to his feet
from one of the girls' tables, took a pinch of the freshly cut tobacco
beside him and rolled a cigarette in his palm with one hand while he felt
in his pocket for a match with the other. Then, in the midst of a great
cloud of fragrant smoke, he sat down upon the edge of his cutting-block
and looked at his companions. After a few moments of deep thought he gave
expression to his meditations in bad German. It is curious to see how
readily the Slavs in Germany fall into the habit of using the language of
the country when conversing together.

"It is my opinion," he said at last, "that the most objectless existences
are those which most exactly accomplish the object set before them."

Having given vent to this bit of paradox, Johann inhaled as much smoke as
his leathery lungs could contain and relapsed into silence. Vjera, the
Polish girl, glanced at the tobacco-cutter and went on with her work. The
insignificant girl beside her giggled vacantly. Dumnoff did not seem to
have heard the remark.

"Nineteen hundred and twenty-three," muttered the Count between his teeth
and in Russian, as the nineteenth hundred and twenty-t