"Well, write better you."
"Certainly I will write, because I blush for all Barania-Glova."
Zolzik sat down, took the pen in his hand, made a number of circles with it, as if to acquire impetus, and then fell to writing rapidly.
The notice was soon ready; the author straightened his hair, and read as follows:—
"The Mayor of the Commune of Barania-Glova to the Mayor of the Commune of Lipa. As the recruiting lists are to be ready at command of superior authority on such and such a day of such and such a year, the Mayor of the Commune of Lipa is notified that the register of those peasants of Barania-Glova, which is in the chancery of his parish, is to be taken by him from that chancery and sent at the very earliest date to the Commune of Barania-Glova. The peasants of the Commune of Barania-Glova who are at work in Lipa are to be presented in Barania-Glova on the same day as the register."
The mayor caught those sounds with eager ear; and his face expressed an occupation and a concentration of spirit that was well-nigh religious. How beautiful and solemn all that seemed to him; how thoroughly official it was! Take, for example, even that beginning: "As the recruiting lists, etc." The mayor adored that "as;" but he never could learn it, or rather he knew how to begin with it, but not a word farther could he go. From Zolzik's hand that flowed just like water; so that even in the chancery of the district no one wrote better. Next he blackened the seal, struck it on the paper so that the table quivered, and all was there finished!
"Well, that is a head for you, that is a head!" said the mayor.
"Yes," answered Zolzik, mollified; "but then a writer [secretary] is one who writes books—"
"Do you write books too?"
"You ask as if you did not know; but the chancery books, who writes them?"