madness. What did he say, Herr Schmidt? I would so like to
know how he took it. Of course he was very angry. Poor man, so mad, so
completely mad on that one point!"

"To tell the truth," said Schmidt, who had listened attentively, "he did
not like what you said to him at all."

"Well, really, was it my fault, Herr Schmidt? I am only a woman, and I
suppose I may be excused if I lose my temper once in a year or so. It is
very wearing on the nerves. Every Tuesday evening begins the same old song
about the fortune and letters, and the journey to Russia. One gets very
tired of it in the long-run. At first it used to amuse me."

"Do you think that Herr Fischelowitz can have gone anywhere else instead
of coming home?" asked the Cossack, finishing the glass of tea, which he
had swallowed burning hot out of sheer anxiety to get away.

"Oh no, indeed," cried Akulina in a tone of the most sincere conviction.
"He always tells me where he is going. You have no idea what a good
husband he is, and what a good man--though I daresay you know that after
being with us so many years. Now, I am sure that if he had the least idea
that anything had happened to the poor Count, he would run all the way
home in order to hear it as soon as possible."

"No more tea, thank you, Frau Fischelowitz," said Schmidt, but she took
his glass with a quiet smile and shredded a fresh piece of lemon into it
and filled it up again, quite heedless of his protest. Schmidt resigned
himself, and thanked her civilly.

"Of course," she said, presently, as she busied herself with the
arrangements of the samovar, "of course it is nothing so very serious, is
it? I daresay the Count has told you that he would not work any more for
us, and you are anxious to arrange the matter? In that case, you need have
no fear. I am always ready to forgive and forget, as they say, though I am
only a weak woman."

"That is very kind of you," observed Schmidt, with a glitter in his eyes
which Akulina did not observe.

"I guessed the truth, did I not?"

"Not exactly. The trouble is rather more serious than that. The fact is,
as we were at supper, a man at another table saw the Gigerl in our hands
and swore that it had been stolen from him some months ago."

"And what happened then?" asked Akulina with sudden interest.

"I suppose you may as well know," said Schmidt, regretfully. "There was a
row, and the man made a great deal of trouble and at last the police were
called in, a