court-room, passed away as soon as they entered
their room and lighted their cigarettes, and, with a feeling of
relief, they seated themselves and immediately started an animated
conversation.

"The girl is not guilty, she was confused," said the kind-hearted
merchant.

"That is what we are going to consider," retorted the foreman. "We
must not yield to our personal impressions."

"The judge's summing up was good," said the colonel.

"Do you call it good? It nearly sent me to sleep."

"The important point is that the servants could not have known that
there was money in the room if Maslova had no understanding with
them," said the clerk with the Jewish face.

"So you think that she stole it?" asked one of the jury.

"I will never believe that," shouted the kind-hearted merchant. "It is
all the work of that red-eyed wench."

"They are all alike," said the colonel.

"But she said that she did not go into the room."

"Do you believe her more than the other? I should never believe that
worthless woman."

"That does not decide the question," said the clerk.

"She had the key."

"What if she had?" answered the merchant.

"And the ring?"

"She explained it," again shouted the merchant. "It is quite likely
that being drunk he struck her. Well, and then he was sorry, of
course. 'There, don't cry! Take this ring.' And what a big man! They
said he weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds, I believe."

"That is not the point," interrupted Peter Gerasimovich. "The question
is, Was she the instigator, or were the servants?"

"The servants could not have done it without her. She had the key."

This incoherent conversation lasted for a long time.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," said the foreman. "Let us sit down and
consider the matter. Take your seats," he added, seating himself in
the foreman's chair.

"These girls are rogues," said the clerk, and to sustain his opinion
that Maslova was the chief culprit, he related how one of those girls
once stole a watch from a friend of his.

As a case in point the colonel related the bolder theft of a silver
_samovar_.

"Gentlemen, let us take up the questions," said the foreman, rapping
on the table with a pencil.

They became silent. The questions submitted were:

1. Is the peasant of the village of Barkoff, district of Krapivensk,
Simon Petroff Kartinkin, thirty-three years of age, guilty of having,
with the design of taking the life of Smelkoff and robbing him,
ad