Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/77

 with his five sons did a roaring trade by smuggling, had often been heard to say that he would give up the whole business if ever Martinka gave it up: the other women caused him too much trouble and annoyance. You never could tell what they might be up to. One had lost part of the goods entrusted to her; another had not hidden them skilfully enough and so spoilt them; a third suddenly and without any cause had taken alarm and thrown away her basket. They did more damage than they were worth. How should Matouš not have been annoyed with them? He often lost patience with them, and patience was such a necessary attribute of his trade. After all, when he came to think of it, there was now no great necessity to put up with them. He had made his pile, and what he now did was more from habit and as a pastime. He was a widower, his sons were married. What was there at home to amuse him? He preferred to roam.

Old Martinka was a past-master in dressing her basket. When one of the police met her in the mornings in the woods, it did not occur to him that her basket could contain anything besides the eggs or apples which she had heaped up on the top, or to ask her any