“Eh, grandfather Lodishkin, you know everything?” teased Sergey.
“Ye-s brother, we’ve been nicely fooled, haven’t we,” said the old organ grinder, nodding his head. “A nasty bit of a boy, however.... How they’ll bring up such a creature, the Lord only knows. Yes, if you please, twenty-five men and women standing around him, dancing dances for his sake. Well, if he’d been in my power, I’d have taught him a lesson. ‘Give me the dog,’ says he. What then? If he asks for the moon out of the sky, give him that also, I suppose. Come here, Arto, come here, my little doggie doggie. Well, and what money we’ve taken to-day—astonishing!”
“Better than money,” continued Sergey, “one lady gave us clothes, another a whole rouble. And doesn’t grandfather Lodishkin know everything in advance?”
“You be quiet,” growled the old man good-naturedly. “Don’t you remember how you ran from the porter? I thought I should never catch you up. A serious man, that porter!”
Leaving the villas, the wandering troupe stepped downward by a steep and winding path to the sea. At this point the mountains, retiring from the shore, left a beautiful level beach covered with tiny pebbles, which lisped and chattered as the waves turned them over. Two hundred yards out to sea dolphins turned somersaults, showing for moments their curved and glimmering backs. Away on the horizon of the wide blue sea, standing as it were on a lovely velvet ribbon of dark purple, were the sails of fishing boats, tinted to a rose colour by the sunlight.
“Here we shall bathe, grandfather Lodishkin,” said Sergey decisively. And he took off his trousers as he walked, jumping from one leg to the other to do so. “Let me help you to take off the organ.”
He swiftly undressed, smacking his sunburnt body with the palms of his hands, ran down to the waves, took a handful of foam to throw over his shoulders, and jumped into the sea.
Grandfather undressed without hurry. Shielding his eyes from the sun with his hands, and wrinkling his brows, he looked at Sergey and grinned knowingly.
“He’s not bad; the boy is growing,” thought Lodishkin to himself. “Plenty of bones—all his ribs showing; but all the same, he’ll be a strong fellow.”
“Hey, Serozhska, don’t you get going too far. A sea pig’ll drag you off!”