n street, viz., that the inhabitants
were to fill up the pits and ditches in the street, and that neither
manure nor the dead bodies of domestic animals should be used for the
purpose, but only broken tiles, etc., from the ruins of other houses.

"Where am I going to get these same broken tiles and bricks? I could
not get sufficient bricks together to build a hen-house," plaintively
said Mokei Anisimoff, a man who hawked kalaches (a sort of white bread)
which were baked by his wife.

"Where can you get broken bricks and lime rubbish? Take bags with you,
and go and remove them from the Corporation buildings. They are so old
that they are of no use to anyone, and you will thus be doing two good
deeds; firstly, by repairing the main street; and secondly, by adorning
the city with a new Corporation building."

"If you want horses get them from the Lord Mayor, and take his three
daughters, who seem quite fit for harness. Then destroy the house of
Judas Petunikoff and pave the street with its timbers. By the way,
Mokei, I know out of what your wife baked to-day's kalaches; out of the
frames of the third window and the two steps from the roof of Judas'
house."

When those present had laughed and joked sufficiently over the
Captain's proposal, the sober market gardener, Pavlyugus asked:

"But seriously, what are we to do, your honour? ... Eh? What do you
think?"

"I? I shall neither move hand nor foot. If they wish to clean the
street let them do it."

"Some of the houses are almost coming down...."

"Let them fall; don't interfere; and when they fall ask help from the
city. If they don't give it you, then bring a suit in court against
them! Where does the water come from? From the city! Therefore let
the city be responsible for the destruction of the houses."

"They will say it is rain-water."

"Does it destroy the houses in the city? Eh? They take taxes from you
but they do not permit you to speak! They destroy your property and at
the same time compel you to repair it!" And half the radicals in the
street, convinced by the words of Kuvalda, decided to wait till the
rain-water came down in huge streams and swept away their houses. The
others, more sensible, found in the teacher a man who composed for them
an excellent and convincing report for the Corporation. In this report
the refusal of the street's inhabitants to comply with the resolution
of the Corporation was so well explained that the Corpora