-can
you imagine it?--the Company happen to come upon a broken-down carriage
of the Z. line. They repair it at their depot, and all at once, bless my
soul! see their own mark on the wheels What do you say to that? Eh? If
I did it they would send me to Siberia, but the railway companies simply
snap their fingers at it!"

It is pleasant to Malahin to talk to educated, cultured people. He
strokes his beard and joins in the conversation with dignity.

"Take this case, gentlemen, for instance," he says. "I am transporting
cattle to X. Eight vanloads. Very good.... Now let us say they charge
me for each vanload as a weight of ten tons; eight bullocks don't weigh
ten tons, but much less, yet they don't take any notice of that...."

At that instant Yasha walks into the room looking for his father. He
listens and is about to sit down on a chair, but probably thinking of
his weight goes and sits on the window-sill.

"They don't take any notice of that," Malahin goes on, "and charge me
and my son the third-class fare, too, forty-two roubles, for going in
the van with the bullocks. This is my son Yakov. I have two more at
home, but they have gone in for study. Well and apart from that it is my
opinion that the railways have ruined the cattle trade. In old days when
they drove them in herds it was better."

The old man's talk is lengthy and drawn out. After every sentence he
looks at Yasha as though he would say: "See how I am talking to clever
people."

"Upon my word!" the inspector interrupts him. "No one is indignant, no
one criticizes. And why? It is very simple. An abomination strikes
the eye and arouses indignation only when it is exceptional, when the
established order is broken by it. Here, where, saving your presence, it
constitutes the long-established program and forms and enters into the
basis of the order itself, where every sleeper on the line bears the
trace of it and stinks of it, one too easily grows accustomed to it!
Yes, sir!"

The second bell rings, the gentlemen in the queer overcoat gets up. The
inspector takes him by the arm and, still talking with heat, goes off
with him to the platform. After the third bell the station-master runs
into his room, and sits down at his table.

"Listen, with what number am I to go?" asks Malahin.

The station-master looks at a form and says indignantly:

"Are you Malahin, eight vanloads? You must pay a rouble a van and
six roubles and twenty kopecks for stamps. You h