The steward would have replied, but the Voevoda looked at him with such an expression that the words died on his lips.
That very day the grindstone was returned to Stanislas Kogoútek's yard. Thereupon the little cock, Scarlet-Comb, although badly scorched, with blisters on both claws, with his tail-feathers gone and his wing shot through, jumped up on to the gate and, proudly raising his little head, shouted to all the world:
'Cock-a-doodle-doo! the Pan has given back the peasant's grindstone!'
THE TINY SCREW
N the watchmaker's bench, which was covered with white paper, so that all the little things needed for his trade should be easy to see, were spread out various small pincers, gimlets, screwdrivers, tiny hammers, watchkeys, files, and other delicate instruments. Under a glass case lay watches and clocks taken to pieces. There were some open boxes filled with cog-wheels, and some watch-glasses, in which lay some wee screws. Among these was a very pretty one, of blue, finely-tempered steel, but so tiny that he could not be seen properly without a magnifying-glass. He looked round the workroom quite frightened at all his new surroundings. Until now he had lain in a dark, closed box and hardly had ever seen the light; now the watchmaker, Karl Ivánovich, had taken him out of the box and laid him in a watch-glass, evidently intending to use him. And now the little blue mite peered round, wondering and frightened.
Indeed, what wonder! Round the walls, in shallow cupboards with glass doors, in flat cases with sloping glass lids, on the large table, on the benches—everywhere, hung or lay or stood watches and clocks of all kinds and sizes, and most of them were moving and ticking like live things. The cheap clocks with tin or china faces, decorated with rather clumsily-painted roses, wagged their pendulums hastily backwards and forwards, as though hurrying to work or to business. The huge clocks in wooden and glass cases, on the contrary, swung their pendulums with a hardly perceptible motion, as though they feared to compromise their dignity by any haste. All sorts of wonderful things were on the table. There was a clock in the shape of a great fallen tree-trunk, across which a log was thrown, with boys sitting on the ends of it, swinging in time to the ticking of the clock. Another represented a gray hare squatting on his haunches, holding the dial between his forefeet and moving his ears in time as the clock ticked. But our tiny Screw was most impressed by a large clock, standing at one corner of the shop in a huge glass case. The clock itself represented an Indian temple with a dome, all carved in black wood. Inside the temple was the dial, also black, with gold letters; the hands were gold snakes. Under the dial, a little in front, sat a gray-haired magician in a long robe and high cap, holding in his right hand a silver hammer. The old man, with his grave expression of face, was so well carved that he looked quite alive. But the most wonderful thing of all was that he never stopped slowly turning his eyes from side to side, keeping time with the solemn, hardly audible ticking of the clock; he seemed as if watching to see that all was in order in his kingdom of time. At his right hand stood a shining silver bell on a tall and slender pedestal; and at his left a black cat was sitting on a cushion; it had real fur, and its green eyes glittered as if alive.