r come here."

Not a word of the whole story of the theft was true: but Mistress Boris
reasoned as follows:

"You must come here first, gypsy woman, with that scolloped-eared pig:
if they find it in your possession, they will put you in jail, and ask
you what you did with the rest. Whether your innocence is proved or not,
the pig-joint will in the meanwhile become uneatable, and won't come
into your stomachs. You may say you got it as a present,--no one will
believe you, and the magistrate will not order such a gentleman as
Sarvoelgyi to come here and witness in your favor."

Kolya allowed himself to be made a participant in his wife's anger, and
went at once to inform the servants of the magistrate, who was sitting
in the village.

Towards evening Kolya, in ambush at the end of the village, spied the
gypsy woman as she came sauntering by Lankadomb, carrying on her arm a
large basket as if it were some great weight.

Kolya said nothing to her, he merely let her pass before him, and
followed her on the other side of the street, until she reached the
middle of the market-place, where many loiterers sauntered and listened
to the tales of his wife.

"Halt, Marcsa!" cried Kolya, standing in the gypsy woman's way.

"What do you want?" she asked, shrugging her shoulders.

"What have you in your basket?"

"What should I have? A pig which you shall not taste, is in it."

"Of course. Has not the pig scolloped ears?"

"Suppose it has?"

"You speak lightly. Let me look at the pig."

"Well look--then go blind. Have you never seen such an animal? Have a
look at it."

The gypsy woman uncovered the basket, in which lay the unhappy victim,
reposing on its stomach, its scolloped ears still standing up straight.

A crowd began to collect round the disputants.

Mistress Boris burst in among them.

"There it is! That was my pig!"

"As much as the shadow of the Turkish Sultan's horse was yours. Off with
you: don't look at it so hard, else you will be bewitched by it and your
child will be like it."

The loiterers began to laugh at that; they were always ready to laugh at
any rough jest.

The laughter enraged Kolya: he seized the much-discussed pig's hind legs
and before the gypsy woman could prevent him, had torn it out of the
basket.

But the pig was heavier than such animals are wont to be at that age,
so that Kolya bumped the noble creature's nose against the ground.

As he did so a dollar rolled out of the pi