"And what claws he has got, the little devil!"
"Let him go! Let him play as he likes!"
"Well, I'll give him a back! Play away, puss!"
Zazubrina was deserted. He stood alone, wiping the green paint off his whiskers with his fingers, and watched the kitten leaping on to the backs and shoulders of the prisoners. Whenever he displayed a wish to sit still on any particular shoulder or back, the men would wriggle about and shake him off, and then he would set off leaping and bounding again from one shoulder to the next. This diverted them all exceedingly, and the laughter was incessant.
"Come, my friends! let us paint the cat!" resounded the voice of Zazubrina. It sounded just as if Zazubrina, in proposing this pastime, at the same time begged them to consent to it.
There was a commotion among the crowd of prisoners.
"But it will be the death of him," cried one.
"Paint the poor beast—what a thing to say!"
"What! paint a live animal, Zazubrina! You deserve a hiding!"
"I call it a devilish good joke," cried a little, broad-shouldered man with a fiery-red beard, enthusiastically.