“Natalya Semyonovna has just been complaining to me that you have been smoking.⁠ ⁠… Is it true? Have you been smoking?”

“Yes, I did smoke once.⁠ ⁠… That’s true.⁠ ⁠…”

“Now you see you are lying as well,” said the prosecutor, frowning to disguise a smile. “Natalya Semyonovna has seen you smoking twice. So you see you have been detected in three misdeeds: smoking, taking someone else’s tobacco, and lying. Three faults.”

“Oh yes,” Seryozha recollected, and his eyes smiled. “That’s true, that’s true; I smoked twice: today and before.”

“So you see it was not once, but twice.⁠ ⁠… I am very, very much displeased with you! You used to be a good boy, but now I see you are spoilt and have become a bad one.”

Yevgeny Petrovitch smoothed down Seryozha’s collar and thought:

“What more am I to say to him!”

“Yes, it’s not right,” he continued. “I did not expect it of you. In the first place, you ought not to take tobacco that does not belong to you. Every person has only the right to make use of his own property; if he takes anyone else’s⁠ ⁠… he is a bad man!” (“I am not saying the right thing!” thought Yevgeny Petrovitch.) “For instance, Natalya Semyonovna has a box with her clothes in it. That’s her box, and we⁠—that is, you and I⁠—dare not touch it, as it is not ours. That’s right, isn’t it? You’ve got toy horses and pictures.⁠ ⁠… I don’t take them, do I? Perhaps I might like to take them, but⁠ ⁠… they are not mine, but yours!”

“Take them if you like!” said Seryozha, raising his eyebrows. “Please don’t hesitate, papa, take them! That yellow dog on your table is mine, but I don’t mind.⁠ ⁠… Let it stay.”