Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/166

 matter for jest, and as jest they had hitherto looked upon all which had been enacted at the quay side.

“But, But!”—began some attempting to humour Poldik “who would take matters so seriously all at once?”

But Poldik paid scanty attention to what they said, and vanished with his vehicle as quickly as Francis had done with the skiff on which he was giving Malka a trip.

And this time Francis and Malka were really long in returning. They must have put in somewhere or other beyond Vysehrad, otherwise wherever they had gone they could have already returned. Poldik was already a second time at the quay for sand, when the wherrymen shouted “Look, there they go!”

Poldik did not look to see who was going or where they were going—he only made haste to finish the loading of his cart before the skiff had reached the shore. And he had just finished as they lay to, and Malka stepped smiling out of the skiff, on which the jolly waterman remained smiling also. Though Malka stepped out of the skiff as quickly as she could, she did not move quickly enough to stop Poldik, who was just that instant driving off and discharging upon his horses every oath in his vocabulary like a shower of hail.

When Malka took her basket and the remains of the untasted dinner, some of the men who were