The captain ran across the passage to the landlady, where their cooking was done. Not to lose precious time, Kolya, in desperate haste, shouted to Perezvon, “Dead!” And the dog immediately turned round and lay on his back with its four paws in the air. The boys laughed. Ilusha looked on with the same suffering smile, but the person most delighted with the dog’s performance was “mamma.” She laughed at the dog and began snapping her fingers and calling it, “Perezvon, Perezvon!”
“Nothing will make him get up, nothing!” Kolya cried triumphantly, proud of his success. “He won’t move for all the shouting in the world, but if I call to him, he’ll jump up in a minute. Ici , Perezvon!” The dog leapt up and bounded about, whining with delight. The captain ran back with a piece of cooked beef.
“Is it hot?” Kolya inquired hurriedly, with a businesslike air, taking the meat. “Dogs don’t like hot things. No, it’s all right. Look, everybody, look, Ilusha, look, old man; why aren’t you looking? He does not look at him, now I’ve brought him.”
The new trick consisted in making the dog stand motionless with his nose out and putting a tempting morsel of meat just on his nose. The luckless dog had to stand without moving, with the meat on his nose, as long as his master chose to keep him, without a movement, perhaps for half an hour. But he kept Perezvon only for a brief moment.