But they tried to frighten him with the headmaster's name.
"Uncles, really and truly, I will never tease you again. Now I have really guessed why a new man cannot be created."
"Speak!"
"Don't hold me so tight!"
They released him all but his hands, and he said to them:
"Uncles, it is not the proper soil. The soil is no good, on my word of honour. You may spit as much as you like, nothing will come of it. For, when God created Adam in his image, the land belonged to nobody. Now it all belongs to someone or other; therefore man now belongs to somebody. Spitting makes no difference whatever."
They were so dumbfounded that they dropped their hands; Mitya rushed away from them, and making a trumpet of his hands shouted:
"You red-skinned Comanches! Iroquois!"
But they all went back to the puddle, and the wisest of them said:
"Colleagues, let us resume our occupation. Let us forget this boy, for he is very likely a socialist in disguise."