"Looks like it," he said shortly.
"Must be the Gospels, then."
"Well, and what if it is?"
"Nothing."
"Got enough and to spare of that stuff, my boy. If you're so fond of Holy Scripture you'd better go to her. Go to her and say, 'Read to me a bit, grannie. For we can't get that sort of thing.' Say, 'We don't go to church, by reason of our dirtiness. But we've got souls too, all as they should be, in the right place.' Go on—go along."
"Truth, shall I?"
"Go on."
Mishka threw down his lever, pulled his shirt straight, smeared the dust over his face with his sleeve, and jumped down from the bath-house.
"She'll give it you, devil of a fool, you," mumbled Semka, smiling sceptically, but watching with extreme curiosity the figure of his comrade, making its way to the summer-house through the mass of dock-leaves.
Tall and bent, with bare, dirty hands, heavily lurching as he walked and catching the branches of the bushes now and then, he was moving clumsily forward, a confused, gentle smile on his face.