ely tune, while the
falsetto of the singer reinforced and completed its loud tones.

Apart from them all, on the brink of a small ravine, lay three young
fellows, and before them stood Yozhov, who spoke in a ringing voice:

"You bear the sacred banner of labour. And I, like yourselves, am a
private soldier in the same army. We all serve Her Majesty, the Press.
And we must live in firm, solid friendship."

"That's true, Nikolay Matveyich!" some one's thick voice interrupted
him. "And we want to ask you to use your influence with the publisher!
Use your influence with him! Illness and drunkenness cannot be treated
as one and the same thing. And, according to his system, it comes out
thus; if one of us gets drunk he is fined to the amount of his day's
earnings; if he takes sick the same is done. We ought to be permitted
to present the doctor's certificate, in case of sickness, to make it
certain; and he, to be just, ought to pay the substitute at least half
the wages of the sick man. Otherwise, it is hard for us. What if three
of us should suddenly be taken sick at once?"

"Yes; that is certainly reasonable," assented Yozhov. "But, my friends,
the principle of cooperation--"

Foma ceased listening to the speech of his friend, for his attention was
diverted by the conversation of others. Two men were talking; one was
a tall consumptive, poorly dressed and angry-looking man; the other a
fair-haired and fair-bearded young man.

"In my opinion," said the tall man sternly, and coughing, "it is
foolish! How can men like us marry? There will be children. Do we have
enough to support them? The wife must be clothed--and then you can't
tell what sort of a woman you may strike."

"She's a fine girl," said the fair-haired man, softly. "Well, it's now
that she is fine. A betrothed girl is one thing, a wife quite another.
But that isn't the main point. You can try--perhaps she will really be
good. But then you'll be short of means. You will kill yourself with
work, and you will ruin her, too. Marriage is an impossible thing for
us. Do you mean to say that we can support a family on such earnings?
Here, you see, I have only been married four years, and my end is near.
I have seen no joy--nothing but worry and care."

He began to cough, coughed for a long time, with a groan, and when he
had ceased, he said to his comrade in a choking voice:

"Drop it, nothing will come of it!"

His interlocutor bent his head mournfully, while F