on from her face looked around her.

The Gusev brothers, the locksmiths, instantly came up to her, and the
older of them, Vasily, asked aloud, knitting his eyebrows:

"Got any pirogs?"

"I'll bring them to-morrow," she answered.

This was the password agreed upon. The faces of the brothers
brightened. Ivan, unable to restrain himself, exclaimed:

"Oh, you jewel of a mother!"

Vasily squatted down on his heels, looked into the pot, and a bundle of
books disappeared into his bosom.

"Ivan!" he said aloud. "Let's not go home, let's get our dinner here
from her!" And he quickly shoved the books into the legs of his boots.
"We must give our new peddler a lift, don't you think so?"

"Yes, indeed!" Ivan assented, and laughed aloud.

The mother looked carefully about her, and called out:

"Sour cabbage soup! Hot vermicelli soup! Roast meat!"

Then deftly and secretly taking out one package of books after the
other, she shoved them into the hands of the brothers. Each time a
bundle disappeared from her hands, the sickly, sneering face of the
officer of gendarmes flashed up before her like a yellow stain, like
the flame of a match in a dark room, and she said to him in her mind,
with a feeling of malicious pleasure:

"Take this, sir!" And when she handed over the last package she added
with an air of satisfaction: "And here is some more, take it!"

Workmen came up to her with cups in their hands, and when they were
near Ivan and Vasily, they began to laugh aloud. The mother calmly
suspended the transfer of the books, and poured sour soup and
vermicelli soup, while the Gusevs joked her.

"How cleverly Nilovna does her work!"

"Necessity drives one even to catching mice," remarked a stoker
somberly. "They have snatched away your breadgiver, the scoundrels!
Well, give us three cents' worth of vermicelli. Never mind, mother!
You'll pull through!"

"Thanks for the good word!" she returned, smiling.

He walked off to one side and mumbled, "It doesn't cost me much to say
a good word!"

"But there's no one to say it to!" observed a blacksmith, with a smile,
and shrugging his shoulders in surprise added: "There's a life for
you, fellows! There's no one to say a good word to; no one is worth
it. Yes, sir!"

Vasily Gusev rose, wrapped his coat tightly around him, and exclaimed:

"What I ate was hot, and yet I feel cold."

Then he walked away. Ivan also rose, and ran off whistling merrily.

Cheerfu