In the dust of the road lay a comparatively large half-eaten lump of sausage, and about it in all directions were printed a dog’s paw-marks.
“He’s drawn it off, the scoundrel, lured it away,” whispered grandfather in a frightened shiver, still sitting on his heels. “It’s he; no one else, it’s quite clear. Don’t you remember how he threw the sausage to Arto down by the sea?”
“Yes, it’s quite clear,” repeated Sergey sulkily.
Grandfather’s wide-open eyes filled with tears, quickly overflowing down his cheeks. He hid them with his hands.
“Now, what can we do Serozhenka? Eh, boy? What can we do now?” asked the old man, rocking to and fro and weeping helplessly.
“Wha-at to do, wha-at to do!” teased Sergey. “Get up, grandfather Lodishkin; let’s be going!”
“Yes, let us go!” repeated the old man sadly and humbly, raising himself from the ground. “We’d better be going, I suppose, Serozhenka.”
Losing patience, Sergey began to scold the old man as if he were a little boy.
“That’s enough drivelling, old man, stupid! Who ever heard of people taking away other folks’ dogs in this way? It’s not the law. What-ye blinking your eyes at me for? Is what I say untrue? Let us go simply and say, ‘Give us back the dog!’ and if they won’t give it, then to the courts with it, and there’s an end of it.”
“To the courts ... yes ... of course.... That’s correct, to the courts, of course...,” repeated Lodishkin, with a senseless bitter smile. But his eyes looked hither and thither in confusion. “To the courts ... yes ... only you know, Serozhenka ... it wouldn’t work ... we’d never get to the courts....”