ce was heard at once: "No, no, my dear, I am not dressed!"

After the performance the comedian shrugged his shoulders, flung
up his hands and said: "Well what am I to do with the horrid thing?
Why, I live in a private flat! Actresses come and see me! It's not
a photograph that you can put in a drawer!"

"You had better sell it, sir," the hairdresser who was disrobing
the actor advised him. "There's an old woman living about here who
buys antique bronzes. Go and enquire for Madame Smirnov . . .
everyone knows her."

The actor followed his advice. . . . Two days later the doctor was
sitting in his consulting-room, and with his finger to his brow was
meditating on the acids of the bile. All at once the door opened
and Sasha Smirnov flew into the room. He was smiling, beaming, and
his whole figure was radiant with happiness. In his hands he held
something wrapped up in newspaper.

"Doctor!" he began breathlessly, "imagine my delight! Happily for
you we have succeeded in picking up the pair to your candelabra!
Mamma is so happy. . . . I am the only son of my mother, you saved
my life. . . ."

And Sasha, all of a tremor with gratitude, set the candelabra before
the doctor. The doctor opened his mouth, tried to say something,
but said nothing: he could not speak.

A JOKE

IT was a bright winter midday. . . . There was a sharp snapping
frost and the curls on Nadenka's temples and the down on her upper
lip were covered with silvery frost. She was holding my arm and we
were standing on a high hill. From where we stood to the ground
below there stretched a smooth sloping descent in which the sun was
reflected as in a looking-glass. Beside us was a little sledge lined
with bright red cloth.

"Let us go down, Nadyezhda Petrovna!" I besought her. "Only once!
I assure you we shall be all right and not hurt."

But Nadenka was afraid. The slope from her little goloshes to the
bottom of the ice hill seemed to her a terrible, immensely deep
abyss. Her spirit failed her, and she held her breath as she looked
down, when I merely suggested her getting into the sledge, but what
would it be if she were to risk flying into the abyss! She would
die, she would go out of her mind.

"I entreat you!" I said. "You mustn't be afraid! You know it's
poor-spirited, it's cowardly!"

Nadenka gave way at last, and from her face I saw that she gave way
in mortal dread. I sat her in the sledge, pale and trembling, put
my arm round her and wi