Presently he turned his attention to myself, and smiled
insinuatingly.

"Inspector," he said, "what are you trying to poke out of
the sky with that squat nose of yours? And why are you here at
all? You come from the contractor, you say? -- from Vasili
Sergeitch? Well, well! Then your job is to hurry us up, to keep
barking out,' Mind what you are doing, such-and-such gang! ' Yet
there you stand-blinking over your task like an object dried
stiff! It's not to blink that you're here, but to play the
watchdog upon us, and to keep an eye open, and your tongue on
the wag. So issue your commands, young cockerel."

Then he shouted to the workmen:

"Now, then! No shirking! Is the job going to be finished
tonight, or is it not? "

As a matter of fact, he himself was the worst shirker in the
artel [Workman's union]. True, he was also a first-rate hand at
his trade, and a man who could work quickly and well and with
skill and concentration; but, unfortunately, he hated putting
himself out, and preferred to spend his time spinning
arresting yarns. For instance, on the present occasion he chose
the moment when work was proceeding with a swing, when everyone
was busily and silently and wholeheartedly labouring with the
object of running the job through to the end, to begin in his
musical voice: