“Well, then, he’ll let you go. Only don’t tell him that I am coming. Perhaps he would not let you go with me. Tell him you want to go to Smolin’s. Smolin!”
A plump boy came up to them, and Yozhov accosted him, shaking his head reproachfully:
“Eh, you red-headed slanderer! It isn’t worth while to be friends with you, blockhead!”
“Why do you abuse me?” asked Smolin, calmly, examining Foma fixedly.
“I am not abusing you; I am telling the truth,” Yozhov explained, straightening himself with animation. “Listen! Although you are a kissel, but—let it go! We’ll come up to see you on Sunday after mass.”
“Come,” Smolin nodded his head.
“We’ll come up. They’ll ring the bell soon. I must run to sell the siskin,” declared Yozhov, pulling out of his pocket a paper package, wherein some live thing was struggling. And he disappeared from the school-yard as mercury from the palm of a hand.
“What a queer fellow he is!” said Foma, dumfounded by Yozhov’s adroitness and looking at Smolin interrogatively.
“He is always like this. He’s very clever,” the red-headed boy explained.
“And cheerful, too,” added Foma.