Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/265

Rh man as if he saw someone there. Michael kept on looking and looking, and all at once he smiled, and his face grew quite bright.

"What are you showing your teeth for, you fool? You had much better see that the things are ready in time!" said the gentleman.

And Michael said: "They'll be quite ready when they're wanted."

"Very well."

The gentleman put on his boot and his pelisse, sniffed a bit and went towards the door. But he forgot to bow, so he hit his head against the ceiling. The gentleman cursed, rubbed his forehead, sat him down in his sledge, and drove off.

So the gentleman went away.

Then Simon said: "He is a veritable flint-stone. He nearly knocked the beam out with his head and it hardly hurt him a bit."

But Matrena said: "How can he help getting hard and smooth with the life he leads. Even death itself has no hold upon a clod like that."

And Simon said to Michael: "We have taken the work, but whether it will do us a mischief after all who can say? The wares are dear, and the gentleman is stern. What if we blunder over it? Look now! your eyes are sharper than mine, and your hands are defter at measuring. Cut out the leather now, and I'll sew on the buttons." 215