t an axe! Give me an axe!"

"Don't chop your fingers off," says the master, when the blows of
the axe on the root under water are heard. "Yefim, get out of this!
Stay, I'll get the eel-pout. . . . You'll never do it."

The root is hacked a little. They partly break it off, and Andrey
Andreitch, to his immense satisfaction, feels his fingers under the
gills of the fish.

"I'm pulling him out, lads! Don't crowd round . . . stand still
. . . . I am pulling him out!"

The head of a big eel-pout, and behind it its long black body,
nearly a yard long, appears on the surface of the water. The fish
flaps its tail heavily and tries to tear itself away.

"None of your nonsense, my boy! Fiddlesticks! I've got you! Aha!"

A honied smile overspreads all the faces. A minute passes in silent
contemplation.

"A famous eel-pout," mutters Yefim, scratching under his shoulder-blades.
"I'll be bound it weighs ten pounds."

"Mm! . . . Yes," the master assents. "The liver is fairly swollen!
It seems to stand out! A-ach!"

The fish makes a sudden, unexpected upward movement with its tail
and the fishermen hear a loud splash . . . they all put out their
hands, but it is too late; they have seen the last of the eel-pout.

ART

A GLOOMY winter morning.

On the smooth and glittering surface of the river Bystryanka,
sprinkled here and there with snow, stand two peasants, scrubby
little Seryozhka and the church beadle, Matvey. Seryozhka, a
short-legged, ragged, mangy-looking fellow of thirty, stares angrily
at the ice. Tufts of wool hang from his shaggy sheepskin like a
mangy dog. In his hands he holds a compass made of two pointed
sticks. Matvey, a fine-looking old man in a new sheepskin and high
felt boots, looks with mild blue eyes upwards where on the high
sloping bank a village nestles picturesquely. In his hands there
is a heavy crowbar.

"Well, are we going to stand like this till evening with our arms
folded?" says Seryozhka, breaking the silence and turning his angry
eyes on Matvey. "Have you come here to stand about, old fool, or
to work?"

"Well, you . . . er . . . show me . . ." Matvey mutters, blinking
mildly.

"Show you. . . . It's always me: me to show you, and me to do it.
They have no sense of their own! Mark it out with the compasses,
that's what's wanted! You can't break the ice without marking it
out. Mark it! Take the compass."

Matvey takes the compasses from Seryozhka's hands, and, shuffling
heavily