"Once-once upon a time there lived a man. Yes, other folk
before YOU have believed my tale. Indeed, it is no more than the
truth that I'm going to tell you. Very well! Cackle away, and be
damned!"

Here everyone without exception dropped his work to shout with
merriment and clap his hands: with the result that, doffing his
cap, and thereby disclosing a silvered, symmetrically shaped
head with one bald spot amid its one dark portion, Ossip was
forced to shout severely:

"Hi, you Budirin! You've had your say, and given us some fun,
and there must be no more of it."

"But I had only just begun what I want to say," the old soldier
grumbled, spitting upon the palms of his hands.

Next, Ossip turned to myself.

"Inspector," he began . . .

It is my opinion that in thus hindering the men from work
through his tale-telling, Ossip had some definite end in view. I
could not say precisely what that end was, but it must have been
the object either of cloaking his own laziness or of giving the
men a rest. On the other hand, whenever the contractor was
present he, Ossip, bore himself with humble obsequiousness , and
continued to assume a guise of simplicity which none the less
did not prevent him, on the advent of each Saturday, from
inducing his employer to bestow a pourboire upon the artel.