Oh, what a pity! Words can't express how sorry we are!" "But what a funeral that is going to be!" "Gentlemen! Let us establish a Mayakin fund! I put up a thousand!" "Silence! Hold on!" "Gentlemen!" Yakov Tarasovich began to speak again, quivering in every limb.

"And, furthermore, we are the foremost men in life and the real masters in our fatherland because we are--peasants!' "Corr-rect!" "That's right! Dear mother! That's an old man for you!" "Hold on! Let him finish." "We are primitive Russian people, and everything that comes from us is truly Russian! Consequently it is the most genuine, the most useful and obligatory." "As true as two and two make four!" "It's so simple." "He is as wise as a serpent!" "And as meek as a--" "As a hawk.

Ha, ha, ha!" The merchants encircled their orator in a close ring, they looked at him with their oily eyes, and were so agitated that they could no longer listen to his words calmly.

Around him a tumult of voices smote the air, and mingling with the noise of the engine, and the beating of the wheels upon the water, it formed a whirlwind of sounds which drowned the jarring voice of the old man.

The excitement of the merchants was growing more and more intense; all faces were radiant with triumph; hands holding out goblets were outstretched toward Mayakin; the merchants clapped him on the shoulder, jostled him, kissed him, gazed with emotion into his face.