heek, he's from Purov's works."

"Don't put down the men from Purov's. It's Purov's birthday to-morrow."

The starlings rose in a black cloud from the Father Prebendary's
garden, but Potcheshihin and Optimov did not notice them. They stood
staring into the air, wondering what could have attracted such a
crowd, and what it was looking at.

Akim Danilitch appeared. Still munching and wiping his lips, he cut
his way into the crowd, bellowing:

"Firemen, be ready! Disperse! Mr. Optimov, disperse, or it'll be
the worse for you! Instead of writing all kinds of things about
decent people in the papers, you had better try to behave yourself
more conformably! No good ever comes of reading the papers!"

"Kindly refrain from reflections upon literature!" cried Optimov
hotly. "I am a literary man, and I will allow no one to make
reflections upon literature! though, as is the duty of a citizen,
I respect you as a father and benefactor!"

"Firemen, turn the hose on them!"

"There's no water, please your honour!"

"Don't answer me! Go and get some! Look sharp!"

"We've nothing to get it in, your honour. The major has taken the
fire-brigade horses to drive his aunt to the station.

"Disperse! Stand back, damnation take you! Is that to your taste?
Put him down, the devil!"

"I've lost my pencil, please your honour!"

The crowd grew larger and larger. There is no telling what proportions
it might have reached if the new organ just arrived from Moscow had
not fortunately begun playing in the tavern close by. Hearing their
favourite tune, the crowd gasped and rushed off to the tavern. So
nobody ever knew why the crowd had assembled, and Potcheshihin and
Optimov had by now forgotten the existence of the starlings who
were innocently responsible for the proceedings.

An hour later the town was still and silent again, and only a
solitary figure was to be seen--the fireman pacing round and round
on the watch-tower.

The same evening Akim Danilitch sat in the grocer's shop drinking
_limonade gaseuse_ and brandy, and writing:

"In addition to the official report, I venture, your Excellency,
to append a few supplementary observations of my own. Father and
benefactor! In very truth, but for the prayers of your virtuous
spouse in her salubrious villa near our town, there's no knowing
what might not have come to pass. What I have been through to-day
I can find no words to express. The efficiency of Krushensky and
of the major of