“He is a slow-witted fellow, he has a lot of money,” observed a third.
They all laughed, but lazily too, as it were reluctantly. Mean-time a baker woman had come, a brisk lively woman.
They bought rolls of her for the five kopecks that had been given us and divided them in equal shares on the spot.
The young man who sold rolls in prison took two dozen and began a lively altercation, trying to get her to give him three rolls instead of the usual two as his commission. But the baker woman would not consent.
“Well, and won’t you give me something else?”
“What else?”
“What the mice don’t eat.”
“A plague take you,” shrieked the woman and laughed. At last the sergeant who superintended the works came up with a stick in his hand.
“Hey, there, what are you sitting there for? Get to work?”
“Set us a task, Ivan Matveitch,” said one of the “leaders” slowly getting up from his place.
“Why didn’t you ask for it at the start? Break up the barge, that’s your task.”
At last they got up desultorily and slouched to the river. Some of them immediately took up the part of foreman, in words, anyway. It appeared that the barge was not to be broken up anyhow, but the timber was to be kept as whole as possible, especially the crossway beams which were fixed to the bottom of the barge by wooden bolts along their whole length.
“We ought first of all to get out this beam. Set to this, lads,” observed one of the convicts who had not spoken before, a quiet and unassuming fellow, not one of the leading or ruling spirits; and stooping down he got hold of a thick beam, waiting for the others to help him. But nobody did help him.
“Get it up, no fear! You won’t get it up and if your grandfather the bear came along, he wouldn’t,” muttered some one between his teeth.
“Well then, brothers, how are we to begin? I don’t know. . .” said the puzzled man who had put himself forward, letting go the beam and getting on to his feet again.
“Work your hardest you’ll never be done . . . why put yourself forward?”
“He could not feed three hens without making a mistake, and now he is to be first. . . . The fidget!”
