, with their tongues out, and their tails in the air.
Grisha thinks that he must run too, and runs after the cats.

"Stop!" cries nurse, seizing him roughly by the shoulder. "Where
are you off to? Haven't you been told not to be naughty?"

Here there is a nurse sitting holding a tray of oranges. Grisha
passes by her, and, without saying anything, takes an orange.

"What are you doing that for?" cries the companion of his travels,
slapping his hand and snatching away the orange. "Silly!"

Now Grisha would have liked to pick up a bit of glass that was lying
at his feet and gleaming like a lamp, but he is afraid that his
hand will be slapped again.

"My respects to you!" Grisha hears suddenly, almost above his ear,
a loud thick voice, and he sees a tall man with bright buttons.

To his great delight, this man gives nurse his hand, stops, and
begins talking to her. The brightness of the sun, the noise of the
carriages, the horses, the bright buttons are all so impressively
new and not dreadful, that Grisha's soul is filled with a feeling
of enjoyment and he begins to laugh.

"Come along! Come along!" he cries to the man with the bright
buttons, tugging at his coattails.

"Come along where?" asks the man.

"Come along!" Grisha insists.

He wants to say that it would be just as well to take with them
papa, mamma, and the cat, but his tongue does not say what he wants
to.

A little later, nurse turns out of the boulevard, and leads Grisha
into a big courtyard where there is still snow; and the man with
the bright buttons comes with them too. They carefully avoid the
lumps of snow and the puddles, then, by a dark and dirty staircase,
they go into a room. Here there is a great deal of smoke, there is
a smell of roast meat, and a woman is standing by the stove frying
cutlets. The cook and the nurse kiss each other, and sit down on
the bench together with the man, and begin talking in a low voice.
Grisha, wrapped up as he is, feels insufferably hot and stifled.

"Why is this?" he wonders, looking about him.

He sees the dark ceiling, the oven fork with two horns, the stove
which looks like a great black hole.

"Mam-ma," he drawls.

"Come, come, come!" cries the nurse. "Wait a bit!"

The cook puts a bottle on the table, two wine-glasses, and a pie.
The two women and the man with the bright buttons clink glasses and
empty them several times, and, the man puts his arm round first the
cook and then the nurse. And