"What do you say, you—?" the sergeant began, but his bluster was lost amid the swift flow of Ossip's further conciliatory words.
"We are folk of this town," Ossip continued, "who tonight found ourselves stranded on the further bank, with nothing to buy bread with, even though the day after tomorrow will be Christ's day, the day when Christians like ourselves wish to clean themselves up a little, and to go to church. So I said to my mates, 'Be off with you, my good fellows, and may God send that no mishap befall you!' And for this presumptuousness of mine I have been punished already, for, as you can see, have as good as broken my leg."
"Yes," ejaculated the sergeant grimly. "But if you had been drowned, what then?"
Ossip sighed wearily.
"What then, do you say, your Excellency? Why, then, nothing, with your permission."
This led the officer to start railing at the culprit, while the crowd listened as silently and attentively as though he had been saying something worthy to be heard and heeded, rather than foully and cynically miscalling their mothers.
Lastly, our names having been noted, the police withdrew, while each of us drank a dram of vodka (and thereby gained a measure of warmth and comfort), and then began to make for our several homes. Ossip followed the police with derisive eyes; whereafter, he leapt to his feet with a nimble, adroit movement, and crossed himself with punctilious piety.
"That's all about it, thank God!" he exclaimed.
"What?" sniggered Boev, now both disillusioned and astonished. "Do you really mean to say that that leg of yours is better already? Or do you mean that it never was injured at all?"
"Ah! So you wish that it HAD been injured, eh?"