may shoot you down," Pavel
concluded, looking curiously at Yefim.

"They will show no mercy," the peasant assented calmly, and resumed his
examination of the books.

"Drink your tea, Yefim; we've got to leave soon," said Rybin.

"Directly." And Yefim asked again: "Revolution is an uprising, isn't
it?"

Andrey came, red, perspiring, and dejected. He shook Yefim's hand
without saying anything, sat down by Rybin's side, and smiled as he
looked at him.

"What's the trouble? Why so blue?" Rybin asked, tapping his knee.

"Nothing."

"Are you a workingman, too?" asked Yefim, nodding his head toward the
Little Russian.

"Yes," Andrey answered. "Why?"

"This is the first time he's seen factory workmen," explained Rybin.
"He says they're different from others."

"How so?" Pavel asked.

Yefim looked carefully at Andrey and said:

"You have sharp bones; peasants' bones are rounder."

"The peasant stands more firmly on his feet," Rybin supplemented. "He
feels the ground under him although he does not possess it. Yet he
feels the earth. But the factory workingman is something like a bird.
He has no home. To-day he's here, to-morrow there. Even his wife can't
attach him to the same spot. At the least provocation--farewell, my
dear! and off he goes to look for something better. But the peasant
wants to improve himself just where he is without moving off the spot.
There's your mother!" And Rybin went out into the kitchen.

Yefim approached Pavel, and with embarrassment asked:

"Perhaps you will give me a book?"

"Certainly."

The peasant's eyes flashed, and he said rapidly:

"I'll return it. Some of our folks bring tar not far from here. They
will return it for me. Thank you! Nowadays a book is like a candle in
the night to us."

Rybin, already dressed and tightly girt, came in and said to Yefim:

"Come, it's time for us to go."

"Now, I have something to read!" exclaimed Yefim, pointing to the book
and smiling inwardly. When he had gone, Pavel animatedly said, turning
to Andrey:

"Did you notice those fellows?"

"Y-yes!" slowly uttered the Little Russian. "Like clouds in the
sunset--thick, dark clouds, moving slowly."

"Mikhail!" exclaimed the mother. "He looks as if he had never been in
a factory! A peasant again. And how formidable he looks!"

"I'm sorry you weren't here," said Pavel to Andrey, who was sitting at
the table, staring gloomily into his glass of tea. "You could have