I am happy, and I will wake up David and tell him all about it; and
then, strange to say, I fall asleep and sleep like the dead. At last
I open my eyes; it is light in my room; the sun has already risen.
Fortunately, no one is yet awake. I spring up as if I were shot: I
wake David and confide the whole story to him. He listens and smiles.

"Do you know what we'll do?" he said at last: "we'll bury this stupid
watch in the ground, so that there shall be nothing left of it."

I consider this an admirable plan, and in a few minutes we dress
ourselves, run into the orchard behind the house, and when we have dug
a deep hole in the soft earth with David's knife, we bury beneath an
old apple tree my godfather's hated present, which now will never fall
into the hands of the disagreeable Trankwillitatin. We throw back the
earth, sprinkle rubbish over the spot, and, proud and happy, without
being seen, we return to the house, go back to bed, and enjoy for
another hour a light, happy sleep.

X.

You can imagine what a row there was the next morning when my aunt
woke up and missed the watch. To this day her piercing cry resounds in
my ears. "Help! robbers!" she shrieked, and alarmed the whole house.
But David and I only smiled quietly to ourselves, and our smiles were
sweet. "Every one must be punished," screamed my aunt. "The watch
has been taken from beneath my head--from beneath my pillow!" We
were prepared for everything, for the worst, but, contrary to our
expectations, it all blew over.

At first my father was very angry: he even spoke of the police, but
the trial of the day before must have tired him a good deal, and
suddenly, to my aunt's indescribable astonishment, he vented his wrath
on her instead of us. "You have given me enough trouble already
about the watch, Pulcheria Petrovna," he cried: "I don't want to hear
anything more about it. It did not take itself off by magic, and what
do I care if it did? They stole it from you? That was your lookout.
'What will Nastasa say?' Confound Nastasa! He does nothing but cheat
and practice dirty tricks. Don't dare to bother me any more with this:
do you hear?"

My father then went to his room, slamming the door behind him. David
and I did not at first understand what his last words referred to:
we found out later that my father was at that time much vexed with
Nastasa, who had snapped up some paying piece of business which had
belonged to him. So my aunt had to withdra