Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 01.djvu/41

Rh "Leave it in the office, and never use it without my order."

Yákov was silent for a few moments; then suddenly his fingers began to move with increased rapidity, and, changing the expression of submissive stupidity with which he listened to his master's commands, into one of shrewd cunning, which was peculiar to him, he moved the abacus up to him, and began to speak.

"Permit me to report to you, Peter Aleksándrovich, that your will shall be done, but it is impossible to pay into the Council at the proper time. You have deigned to say," continued he, speaking more slowly, "that money is due from the deposits, the mill, and the hay." (As he mentioned these items, he cast them on the abacus.) "But I am afraid we may have made a mistake in our calculations," he added, after a short silence, and looking thoughtfully at papa.

"Why?"

"Permit me to show you: as to the mill, the miller has come to see me twice to ask for a delay; he swore by Christ that he had no money, and he is here even now; perhaps you would be pleased to speak to him yourself?"

"What does he say?" asked papa, making a sign with his head that he did not wish to speak with the miller.

"The same old thing! He says that there has been no grinding at all, that all the money he had he put into a dam. What advantage would there be for us, sir, to push him for it? As to the deposits, which you mentioned, it seems to me I already have reported that our money is stuck fast there, and that it will not be so easy to get it soon. I only lately sent to town a wagon of flour to Iván Afanásich, and with it a note in regard to this matter: he answered that it would give him pleasure to do something for Peter Aleksándrych, but that the affair was not in his hands, and that, according to appearances,