,
'Here, Abramka, here is the stuff, make a dress?' Abramka would work
on it day and night."

"Ahem, that's just it--I can't order it. That is where the trouble
comes in. Tell me, Abramka, what is the shortest time you need for
making the dress? Listen, the very shortest?"

Abramka shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, is a week too much for a ball dress such as you will want? It's
got to be sewed, it can't be pasted together, You, yourself, know
that, Mrs. Zarubkin."

"But supposing I order it only three days before the ball?"

Abramka started.

"Only three days before the ball? A ball dress? Am I a god, Mrs.
Zarubkin? I am nothing but the ladies' tailor, Abramka Stiftik."

"Well, then you are a nice tailor!" said Tatyana Grigoryevna,
scornfully. "In Moscow they made a ball dress for me in two days."

Abramka jumped up as if at a shot, and beat his breast.

"Is that so? Then I say, Mrs. Zarubkin," he cried pathetically, "if
they made a ball gown for you in Moscow in two days, very well, then I
will make a ball gown for you, if I must, in one day. I will neither
eat nor sleep, and I won't let my help off either for one minute. How
does that suit you?"

"Sit down, Abramka, thank you very much. I hope I shall not have to
put such a strain on you. It really does not depend upon me, otherwise
I should have ordered the dress from you long ago."

"It doesn't depend upon you? Then upon whom does it depend?"

"Ahem, it depends upon--but now, Abramka, remember this is just
between you and me--it depends upon Mrs. Shaldin."

"Upon Mrs. Shaldin, the doctor's wife? Why she isn't even here."

"That's just it. That is why I have to wait. How is it that a clever
man like you, Abramka, doesn't grasp the situation?"

"Hm, hm! Let me see." Abramka racked his brains for a solution of the
riddle. How could it be that Mrs. Shaldin, who was away, should have
anything to do with Mrs. Zarubkin's order for a gown? No, that passed
his comprehension.

"She certainly will get back in time for the ball," said Mrs.
Zarubkin, to give him a cue.

"Well, yes."

"And certainly will bring a dress back with her."

"Certainly!"

"A dress from abroad, something we have never seen here--something
highly original."

"Mrs. Zarubkin!" Abramka cried, as if a truth of tremendous import had
been revealed to him. "Mrs. Zarubkin, I understand. Why certainly!
Yes, but that will be pretty hard."

"That's just it."

Abramka reflected a moment,