a rough draft," I suggested.

"Well, first a rough draft; only write. Meanwhile, I'll polish it up a
little with chalk."

I took a sheet of paper, cut a pen, but had not yet written at the
head of the page, "To his Excellency, to his Highness Prince" (Prince
X---- was the governor of our district), when I started, alarmed by a
strange uproar which suddenly arose in the house. David also noticed
the noise and started, holding the watch in his left hand and the rag
covered with chalk in his right. What was that shrill shriek? It was
my aunt screaming. And that? That is my father's voice, hoarse
with anger. "The watch! the watch!" some one cries, probably
Trankwillitatin. The stamping of feet, the creaking of the stairs, the
rush of the crowd, are all coming straight toward us. I am nearly dead
with fright, and even David is as pale as a sheet, but his eye is as
bold as an eagle's. "That wretched Wassily has betrayed us," he
hisses between his teeth. The door opens wide, and my father in
his dressing-gown, without a cravat, my aunt in a dressing-sack,
Trankwillitatin, Wassily, Juschka, another young fellow, Agapit the
cook, all hustle into the room.

"You fiends!" cries my father almost breathless, "at last we have
found you out!" And, catching a glimpse of the watch in David's hand,
he cries out, "Give me the watch--give it to me!"

But David without a word springs to the open window, from that into
the yard, and thence into the street. Since I always, in everything I
do, follow my model, also jump from the window and run after David.

"Stop them! hold them!" confused voices cry after us.

But we tear along the street, bareheaded, David in front, I a few
steps behind, and in the distance we hear the clatter of their feet
and their cries.

XIX.

Many years have passed since this happened, and I have often thought
it over, and to this day I cannot comprehend the fury which possessed
my father, who not long before had forbidden any one's speaking about
the watch because it bored him, any more than I can David's wrath when
he heard that Wassily had taken it. I can't help thinking it had some
mysterious power. Wassily had not told about us, as David supposed--he
did not want to do that, he had been too badly frightened--but one
of the servant-girls had seen the watch in his hands and had told my
aunt. Then all the fat was in the fire.

So we ran along the street in the carriage-way. The people who met us
s