Page:Korolenko - Makar's Dream and Other Stories.djvu/272

248 the end. A song's not a song, they say, if a word is missing. And after all, if the miller doesn't hide anything, why should I?

You see, the state of affairs was this. All old Yankel had ever wanted had been human money. If he heard with one corner of his ear that some one had a rouble or two loose in his pocket his heart would give him a little prod and he would immediately think of some way in which he could pull up that rouble and put it to work for him, as one might pull a fish out of somebody else's pond. If he succeeded, he and his Sarah would rejoice over their good fortune.

But that wasn't enough for the miller. Yankel had always grovelled before every one, but the miller held his head as high as a turkey cock. Yankel had always slipped up to the back door of the District policeman's house and stood timidly on the threshold, but the miller swaggered all over the front steps as if he were at home there. Yankel never took it hard if he got his ears boxed by some drunken fellow. He howled a bit and then stopped, perhaps squeezing a few extra copecks out of his tormentor one day or another to make up for it. But if the miller ever got hold of a peasant's top-knot it would probably stay in his hands, and his eyes would flash like the sparks from a blacksmith's hammer. With the miller it was: pay up both money and respect! And he got them both, there's no use denying