Kokovkina was at a loss for a moment.
"What wrong? Don't you know yourself? Didn't I find you in a skirt not long ago? Have you forgotten, you shameless boy?"
"Yes, but what was especially wrong with that? And didn't you punish me for it? It wasn't as if I'd stolen the skirt!"
"Hark how he talks!" said Kokovkina in a distraught way. "I punished you, but not enough apparently."
"Well, punish me again," said Sasha defiantly, with the look of a person unjustly treated. "You forgave me yourself, and now it wasn't enough. I didn't ask you to forgive me—I would have knelt all the evening. And what's the good of scolding me all the time?"
"Yes, and everyone in town is talking about you and your Liudmillotchka."
"And what are they saying?" asked Sasha in an innocently inquisitive tone of voice.
Kokovkina was again at a loss.
"It's clear enough what they're saying! You know perfectly well what might be said of you. Very little that's good, you may be sure. You're up to mischief with your Liudmillotchka—that's what they're saying."
"Well, I won't get up to mischief again," Sasha promised as calmly as if the conversation concerned a game of "touch."