d upon each other like crags, covering little
by little the blue vault of the sky."

By degrees the smile was coming off Roly-Poly's face, and it grew more
and more serious and austere.

"'At last the clouds have overcast the sun ... An ominous darkness has
fallen ...'"

Roly-Poly made his physiognomy altogether ferocious.

"'The first drops of the rain fell ...'"

Roly-Poly began to drum his fingers on the back of a chair.

"'... In the distance flashed the first lightning ... '"

Roly-Poly's eye winked quickly, and the left corner of his mouth gave a
twitch.

"'... Whereupon the rain began to pour down in torrents, and there came
a sudden, blinding flash of lightning...'"

And with unusual artistry and rapidity Roly-Poly, with a successive
movement of his eyebrows, eyes, nose, the upper and the lower lip,
portrayed a lightning zig-zag.

"'... A jarring thunder clap burst out--trrroo-oo. An oak that had
stood through the ages fell down to earth, as though it were a frail
reed ...'"

And Roly-Poly with an ease and daring not to be expected from one of
his years, bending neither the knees nor the back, only drawing down
his head, instantaneously fell down; straight, like a statue, with his
back to the floor, but at once deftly sprang up on his feet.

"'But now the thunder storm is gradually abating. The lightning flashes
less and less often. The thunder sounds duller, just like a satiated
beast--oooooo-oooooo ... The clouds scurry away. The first rays of the
blessed sun have peeped out ...'"

Roly-Poly made a wry smile.

"'... And now, the luminary of day has at last begun to shine anew over
the bathed earth ...'"

And the silliest of beatific smiles spread anew over the senile face of
Roly-Poly.

The cadets gave him a twenty-kopeck piece each. He laid them on his
palm, made a pass in the air with the other hand, said: ein, zwei,
drei, snapped two of his fingers, and the coins vanished.

"Tamarochka, this isn't honest," he said reproachfully. "Aren't you
ashamed to take the last money from a poor retired almost-head-officer?
Why have you hidden them here?"

And, having snapped his fingers again, he drew the coins out of
Tamara's ear.

"I shall return at once, don't be bored without me," he reassured the
young people; "but if you can't wait for me, then I won't have any
special pretensions about it. I have the honour! ..."

"Roly-Poly!" Little White Manka cried after him, "Won't you buy me
cand