And he answered, laughing in some confusion:
"And what about you, wild fowl? There's as much roguery about you as about me!"
"How should we be anything else, friend?" agreed Ephimushka, but grave Petr said:
"You live by what you steal; what you earn you give to God and the emperor."
"Well, then I 'll willingly make a burnt offering of you," laughed the master.
They led him on good-naturedly:
"Set fire to us, you mean?"
"Burn us in a fiery furnace?"
Gregory Shishl in, pressing his luxuriant beard to his breast with his hands, said in a sing-song voice: "Brothers, let us do our business without cheating. If we will only live honestly, how happy and peaceful we shall be, eh? Shall we not, dear people?"
His blue eyes darkened, grew moist; at that moment he looked wonderfully handsome. His question seemed to have upset them all; they all turned away from him in confusion.