who is making cakes, is kept waiting by her too, and
I, with the lettering to do on the book, I also wait."

"But _what_ are you waiting for?"

"You see, if the cakes are to take on a nice glaze while baking, they
must be brushed over with a yolk."

"Well, and what has that to do with stamping the letters on the cover of
the book?"

"What has that to do with it? Don't you know that the glaze-gold which
is used for the letters will not stick to the cover without some white
of egg?"

"Yes, I have seen them smearing the cover with white of egg before
putting on the letters. Then what?"

"How 'what?' That is why we are waiting for the egg."

"So you have sent out to buy an egg?"

"No, but it will be there directly." He points out to me the corner
which he has been running to look into the whole time, and there, on the
ground, I see an overturned sieve, and under the sieve, a hen turning
round and round and cackling.

"As if she'd rather burst!" continued Seinwill. "Just because we want it
so badly, she won't lay. She lays an egg for me nearly every time, and
now--just as if she'd rather burst!" he said, and began to scratch his
head.

And the hen? The hen went on turning round and round like a prisoner in
a dungeon, and cackled louder than ever.

To tell the truth, I had inferred at once that Seinwill was persuaded I
should wait for my book till the hen had laid an egg, and as I watched
Seinwill's wife, and saw with what anxiety she waited for the hen to
lay, I knew that I was right, that Seinwill was indeed so persuaded, for
his wife called to him:

"Ask the young man for a kopek and send the child to buy an egg in the
market. The cakes are getting cold."

"The young man owes me nothing, a few weeks ago he paid me for the whole
job. There is no one to borrow from, nobody will lend me anything, I owe
money all around, my very hair is not my own."

When Seinwill had answered his wife, he took another peep into the
corner, and said:

"She will not keep us waiting much longer now. She can't cackle forever.
Another two minutes!"

But the hen went on puffing out her feathers, pecking and cackling for a
good deal more than two minutes. It seemed as if she could not bear to
see her master and mistress in trouble, as if she really wished to do
them a kindness by laying an egg. But no egg appeared.

I _lent_ Seinwill two or three kopeks, which he was to pay me back in
work, because Seinwill has never once ask