They all laughed, but lazily too, as it were reluctantly. Meantime a baker woman had come, a brisk lively woman.

They bought rolls of her for the five kopecks that had been given us and divided them in equal shares on the spot.

The young man who sold rolls in prison took two dozen and began a lively altercation, trying to get her to give him three rolls instead of the usual two as his commission. But the baker woman would not consent.

“Well, and won’t you give me something else?”

“What else?”

“What the mice don’t eat.”

“A plague take you,” shrieked the woman and laughed.

At last the sergeant who superintended the works came up with a stick in his hand.