“No, no,” said Michael. “Mr. Slipitsky must sign the paper if I pay him the money—it is always so. I do not know who you are. I must see Mr. Slipitsky, I tell you.”
The youth got to his feet and looked closely at Michael, as if suspicious of his purpose. He had probably been shrewd enough to understand that Michael did not talk wholly as a peasant. Having scrutinized Michael, he turned and looked at Katerin, but she ignored his gaze and looked about the walls at the dirty old posters with pictures of Russian ships.
“Go away!” said the youth finally. “I can’t be troubled. This is no time to come asking for Mr. Slipitsky.”
“But I have come twenty versts this morning to see Mr. Slipitsky and give him the money and I must get back to my cow,” insisted Michael, seeing that he was making an impression on the youth despite the latter’s show of contempt. “And if I have to go back to my house, it will be two months again before I can pay——”
A black figure appeared at the top of the stairs while Michael was talking, and called down sharply, “Dazo! What are you doing? Who is there?”
“I don’t know who it is,” said Dazo. “Some fools in from the country who have lost their way and——”
“And is it a grand ball or something you are having down there with all this talk I hear, till I can’t do anything with my figures?” demanded the one above wrathfully. “Who is it come to talk with you so early in the morning? Maybe some rich gentleman from Moscow, eh?”
Michael now recognized the person above as Slipitsky, and knowing that they were safe at last, called out, “Mr. Slipitsky, I have come to pay you the money I owe to you.”
Slipitsky leaned forward and peered down the stairs. “What! Somebody would be paying me money and that stupid goat of a Dazo does not know what is wanted. Dazo! Is it money you would let slip away from me in these times? Oy! A poor man you would make of me, stupid one! Tell the gentleman to come up.”
But Michael did not wait to be urged by Dazo to go up. He started at once, and Katerin picked up the bundle and followed. Slipitsky remained standing in the dim light of the upper hall at the head of the stairs, peering down, and as Michael drew near the top, waved him forward. “Come this way to my office, please. And you—Dazo! Keep the door shut or I shall be beggared with buying wood from the Buriats. It is the house we wish to warm, and not all of Chita.”