e foreman, one Ossip, a cleanly built, upright little
peasant with a neatly curling, silvery beard, ruddy cheeks, and a
flexible neck, a man everywhere and always in evidence, shouted:

"Look alive there, my hearties!"

Presently he turned his attention to myself, and smiled insinuatingly.

"Inspector," he said, "what are you trying to poke out of the sky with
that squat nose of yours? And why are you here at all? You come from
the contractor, you say?--from Vasili Sergeitch? Well, well! Then your
job is to hurry us up, to keep barking out, 'Mind what you are doing,
such-and-such gang!' Yet there you stand-blinking over your task like
an object dried stiff! It's not to blink that you're here, but to play
the watchdog upon us, and to keep an eye open, and your tongue on the
wag. So issue your commands, young cockerel."

Then he shouted to the workmen:

"Now, then! No shirking! Is the job going to be finished tonight, or
is it not?"

As a matter of fact, he himself was the worst shirker in the artel
[Workman's union]. True, he was also a first-rate hand at his trade,
and a man who could work quickly and well and with skill and
concentration; but, unfortunately, he hated putting himself out, and
preferred to spend his time spinning arresting yarns. For instance, on
the present occasion he chose the moment when work was proceeding with
a swing, when everyone was busily and silently and wholeheartedly
labouring with the object of running the job through to the end, to
begin in his musical voice:

"Look here, lads. Once upon a time--"

And though for the first two or three minutes the men appeared not to
hear him, and continued their planing and chopping as before, the
moment came when the soft tenor accents caught and held the men's
attention, as they trickled and burbled forth. Then, screwing up his
bright eyes with a humorous air, and twisting his curly beard between
his fingers, Ossip gave a complacent click of his tongue, and continued
measuredly, and with deliberation:

"So he seized hold of the tench, and thrust it back into the cave. And
as he turned to proceed through the forest he thought to himself: 'Now
I must keep my eyes about me.' And suddenly, from somewhere (no one
could have said where), a woman's voice shrieked: 'Elesi-a-ah!
Elesia-ah!'"

Here a tall, lanky Morduine named Leuka, with, as surname, Narodetz, a
young fellow whose small eyes wore always an expression of
astonishment, laid aside h