Page:Balkan Short Stories.djvu/236

224 about. “How did he ever conceal all this fun that’s in him!”

To the song of the fiddlers the guests from all the other rooms came running in, and the dancing crowd grew larger and larger—and always the merriment rose higher. Two from another room, one in a light dolman the other in an elegant laced coat of fur—and in this heat—(and they were old, too, over seventy) joined the young dancers and laughed and leaped and rattled their silver spurs.

One pretty girl (she was blond and she wore a crown of fresh flowers on her hair, and huge golden earrings in ears that were very white) lost the lappet from her shoe.

“Who made these shoes?”

“Prakovsky.”

“Where is Prakovsky? Wait you bungler! Bring Prakovsky here. He shall be covered with plaster.”

Ten people started to bring Prakovsky. They said that he was playing durak in the third drawing room, with Father Krudz and a lawyer.

In the meantime they kept right on brewing and cooking in the kitchen. Prettily dressed,