and he gives Alyosha a slap on
the head! Alyosha glares angrily, jumps up, and with one knee on
the table, slaps Andrey on the cheek! Each gives the other a second
blow, and both howl. Sonya, feeling such horrors too much for her,
begins crying too, and the dining-room resounds with lamentations
on various notes. But do not imagine that that is the end of the
game. Before five minutes are over, the children are laughing and
talking peaceably again. Their faces are tear-stained, but that
does not prevent them from smiling; Alyosha is positively blissful,
there has been a squabble!

Vasya, the fifth form schoolboy, walks into the dining-room. He
looks sleepy and disillusioned.

"This is revolting!" he thinks, seeing Grisha feel in his pockets
in which the kopecks are jingling. "How can they give children
money? And how can they let them play games of chance? A nice way
to bring them up, I must say! It's revolting!"

But the children's play is so tempting that he feels an inclination
to join them and to try his luck.

"Wait a minute and I'll sit down to a game," he says.

"Put down a kopeck!"

"In a minute," he says, fumbling in his pockets. "I haven't a kopeck,
but here is a rouble. I'll stake a rouble."

"No, no, no. . . . You must put down a kopeck."

"You stupids. A rouble is worth more than a kopeck anyway," the
schoolboy explains. "Whoever wins can give me change."

"No, please! Go away!"

The fifth form schoolboy shrugs his shoulders, and goes into the
kitchen to get change from the servants. It appears there is not a
single kopeck in the kitchen.

"In that case, you give me change," he urges Grisha, coming back
from the kitchen. "I'll pay you for the change. Won't you? Come,
give me ten kopecks for a rouble."

Grisha looks suspiciously at Vasya, wondering whether it isn't some
trick, a swindle.

"I won't," he says, holding his pockets.

Vasya begins to get cross, and abuses them, calling them idiots and
blockheads.

"I'll put down a stake for you, Vasya!" says Sonya. "Sit down." He
sits down and lays two cards before him. Anya begins counting the
numbers.

"I've dropped a kopeck!" Grisha announces suddenly, in an agitated
voice. "Wait!"

He takes the lamp, and creeps under the table to look for the kopeck.
They clutch at nutshells and all sorts of nastiness, knock their
heads together, but do not find the kopeck. They begin looking
again, and look till Vasya takes the lamp out of Grisha's