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By Root 2118 0

on at me to-day something awful! And what about? There was a little bit of cheese left over from last week – you would be ashamed to throw it to a dog, but no, a servant mustn’t touch it! He asked for it and I said there was nothing left of it, so off he went! “You ought to be hanged,” he says, “you ought to be boiled in pitch,” he says, “and torn limb from limb with red-hot pincers! You ought to have an ashen stake driven through you,” he says. And on he goes, on and on and on. What do you think? The other day I scalded his foot – I’m hanged if I know how it happened – and he screamed something awful! If I hadn’t jumped back, he’d have hit me in the chest with his fist – I could see he wanted to – knocked me down, he would have!’

The coachman shook his head.

‘A smart gentleman and no mistake,’ said the caretaker. ‘Don’t give you much rope, he don’t.’

‘What I says is,’ the same valet said phlegmatically, ‘that if he swears at you, he’s a good chap. One who doesn’t swear is a hundred times worse: he looks and looks at you and before you know what’s wrong, he’s grabbed you by the hair!’

‘It didn’t do him no good,’ said Zakhar, without paying any attention to the valet who had interrupted him. ‘His foot hasn’t healed up yet. He still keeps putting ointment on it – let him!’

‘A high-spirited gentleman,’ said the caretaker.

‘Oh, terrible!’ Zakhar went on. ‘One day he’s sure to kill someone, you’ll see if he don’t. And for every little thing he calls me “bald-headed —” – I’d rather not say the rest. To-day he thought of something new: “venomous”, he said! How could he say a thing like that!’

‘Well, that’s nothing,’ the valet went on. ‘If he swears, you ought to be pleased – God bless him. But if he says nothing, but just looks and looks, and when you happen to go near him, grabs you by the hair, like the master I worked for…! If he swears, it’s nothing.…’

‘And it served you right,’ observed Zakhar, angered by his unasked-for interference. ‘I’d have treated you worse, I would.’

‘What is it he calls you, Zakhar Trofimych, a “bald-headed devil”?’ asked a boy-servant of fifteen.

Zakhar turned his head slowly and fixed him with a malignant glance.

‘Look out, my lad,’ he said sharply, ‘you’re too clever by half! You may belong to a general, but I’ll pull your hair, for all that! Back to your place with you!’

The boy walked away a few yards and stopped, looking at Zakhar with a smile.

‘What are you grinning at?’ Zakhar growled furiously. ‘Wait till I lay my hands on you. I’ll box your ears, I will. I’ll teach you how to grin at me!’

At that moment a huge footman in gaiters and shoulder-knots and with his livery coat unbuttoned ran out of the main entrance of the house. He went up to the page-boy, slapped his face, and called him a fool.

‘What’s the matter, Matvey Moiseich?’ asked the ashamed and bewildered boy, holding his cheek and blinking convulsively. ‘What’s this for?’

‘Oh, so you’re talking, are you?’ replied the footman. ‘I’m looking all over the house for you, and you are here!’

He grabbed him by the hair, bent down his head, and hit him methodically three times with his fist across the neck.

‘The master’s rung five times,’ he added by way of a moral, ‘and I’m blamed because of you, you puppy! Off you go!’

And he pointed imperiously to the staircase. The boy stood still for a moment in a kind of stupor, blinked twice, glanced at the footman, and, seeing that he could not expect anything from him except a repetition of the same punishment, tossed his hair and ran briskly up the stairs.

What a triumph for Zakhar!

‘Give it him good and proper, Matvey Moiseich! Give him some more, some more!’ he said, beaming maliciously. ‘That wasn’t enough! Well done, Matvey Moiseich! Thank you! He’s too clever by half! That’s for calling me a “bald-headed devil”! You won’t be jeering at me again, will you now?’

The servants laughed, sympathizing with the footman, who had beaten the boy, and with Zakhar, who rejoiced maliciously at it. No one sympathized with the page-boy.

‘That