get out of the
wind. Half-way he suddenly bent down, stole up to some lady, and
plucked at her sleeve from behind. When she looked round he skipped
away, and probably delighted at having succeeded in frightening
her, went off into a loud, aged laugh.

"Lively old fellow," said the governor. "It's a wonder he's not
skating."

As he got near the pavilion the mayor fell into a little tripping
trot, waved his hands, and, taking a run, slid along the ice in his
huge golosh boots up to the very door.

"Yegor Ivanitch, you ought to get yourself some skates!" the governor
greeted him.

"That's just what I am thinking," he answered in a squeaky, somewhat
nasal tenor, taking off his cap. "I wish you good health, your
Excellency! Your Holiness! Long life to all the other gentlemen and
ladies! Here's a frost! Yes, it is a frost, bother it! It's deadly!"

Winking with his red, frozen eyes, Yegor Ivanitch stamped on the
floor with his golosh boots and swung his arms together like a
frozen cabman.

"Such a damnable frost, worse than any dog!" he went on talking,
smiling all over his face. "It's a real affliction!"

"It's healthy," said the governor; "frost strengthens a man and
makes him vigorous. . . ."

"Though it may be healthy, it would be better without it at all,"
said the mayor, wiping his wedge-shaped beard with a red handkerchief.
"It would be a good riddance! To my thinking, your Excellency, the
Lord sends it us as a punishment--the frost, I mean. We sin in
the summer and are punished in the winter. . . . Yes!"

Yegor Ivanitch looked round him quickly and flung up his hands.

"Why, where's the needful . . . to warm us up?" he asked, looking
in alarm first at the governor and then at the bishop. "Your
Excellency! Your Holiness! I'll be bound, the ladies are frozen
too! We must have something, this won't do!"

Everyone began gesticulating and declaring that they had not come
to the skating to warm themselves, but the mayor, heeding no one,
opened the door and beckoned to someone with his crooked finger. A
workman and a fireman ran up to him.

"Here, run off to Savatin," he muttered, "and tell him to make haste
and send here . . . what do you call it? . . . What's it to be?
Tell him to send a dozen glasses . . . a dozen glasses of mulled
wine, the very hottest, or punch, perhaps. . . ."

There was laughter in the pavilion.

"A nice thing to treat us to!"

"Never mind, we will drink it," muttered the mayor;