120
THE RUNAWAY
the window were steps and a hall door with a white notice-board. Pashka rushed up the steps, and looked through the window. A sharp, breathless joy suddenly seized him. For there in the window at a table sat the merry, talkative doctor with a book in his hands. Pashka laughed with joy; he tried to cry out; but some irresistible force suppressed his breath, and struck him on the legs, and he staggered and fell senseless on the steps.
When he came to himself it was quite light; and the sing-song voice that had promised the fair, the thrushes, and the live fox whispered in his ear —
“You're a donkey, Pashka! Now aren't you a donkey? You ought to be whipped. . . .”
