a plank for
liquor?"

Again, there befell an occasion when the men stole two pounds' weight
of five vershok mandrels and bolts.

"Look here," I said to Ossip warningly. "I am going to report this."

"All right," he agreed with a twitch of his grey eyebrows. "Though what
such a trifle can matter I fail to see. Yes, go and report every
mother's son of them."

And to the men themselves he shouted:

"Hi, boobies! Each of you now stands docked for some mandrels and
bolts."

"Why?" was the old soldier's grim inquiry.

"Because you DO so stand," carelessly retorted the other.

With snarls thereafter, the men eyed me covertly, until I began to feel
that very likely I should not do as I had threatened, and even that so
to do might not be expedient.

"But look here," said I to Ossip. "I am going to give the contractor
notice, and let all of you go to the devil. For if I were to remain
with you much longer I too should become a thief."

Ossip stroked his beard awhile, and pondered. Then he seated himself
beside me, and said in an undertone:

"That is true."

"Well?"

"But things are always so. The truth is that it's time you departed.
What sort of a watchman, of a checker, are you? In jobs of this kind
what a man needs to know is the meaning of property. He needs to have
in him the spirit of a dog, so that he shall look after his master's
stuff as he would look after the skin which his mother has put on to
his own body. But you, you young puppy, haven't the slightest notion of
what property means. In fact, were anyone to go and tell Vasili
Sergeitch about the way in which you keep letting us off, he'd give it
you in the neck. Yes, you're no good to him at all, but just an
expense: whereas when a man serves a master he ought, do you
understand, to be PROFITABLE to that master."

He rolled and handed me a cigarette.

"Smoke this," said he, "and perhaps it'll make your brain work easier.
If only you had been of a less awkward, uncomfortable nature, I should
have said to you, 'Go and join the priests; but, as things are, you
aren't the right sort for that--you're too stiff and unbending, and
would never make headway even with an abbot. No, you're not the sort to
play cards with. A monk is like a jackdaw--he chatters without knowing
what he is chattering about, and pays no heed to the root of things, so
busy is he with stuffing himself full with the grain. I say this to you
with absolute earnestness, for I perceive