One day passed, then another; the big, coarse peasant became so skilful that he even began to cook soup in the hollow of his hand. Our Generals became jovial, light-hearted, fat, and white. They began to say to each other that, here they were living with everything ready to hand while their pensions were accumulating and accumulating in Petersburg. "What do you think, your Excellency, was there really a tower of Babel, or is that merely a fable?" one General would say to the other, as they ate their breakfast. "I think, your Excellency, that it really was built; because, otherwise, how can we explain the fact that many different languages exist in the world?" "Then the flood must have occurred also?" "The flood did happen, otherwise, how could the existence of antediluvian animals be explained? The more so as it is announced in the 'Moscow News'...." "Shall we not read the 'Moscow News'?" Then they would hunt up that copy, seat themselves in the shade, and read it through from end to end; what people had been eating in Moscow, eating in Tula, eating in Penza, eating in Ryazan--and it had no effect on them; it did not turn their stomachs. In the long run, the Generals got bored. They began to refer more and more frequently to the cooks whom they had left behind them in Petersburg, and they even wept, on the sly. "What is going on now in Pettifoggers Street, your Excellency?" one General asked the other. "Don't allude to it, your Excellency! My whole heart is sore!" replied the other General. "It is pleasant here, very pleasant--there are no words to describe it; but still, it is awkward for us to be all alone, isn't it? And I regret my uniform also." "Of course you do! Especially as it is of the fourth class,[40] so that it makes you dizzy to gaze at the embroidery alone!" Then they began to urge the peasant: Take them, take them to Pettifoggers Street! And behold! The peasant, it appeared, even knew all about Pettifoggers Street; had been there; his mouth had watered at it, but he had not had a taste of it! "And we are Generals from Pettifoggers Street, you know!" cried the Generals joyfully. "And I, also, if you had only observed; a man hangs outside a house, in a box, from a rope, and washes the wall with color, or walks on the roof like a fly. I am that man," replied the peasant. And the peasant began to cut capers, as though to amuse his Generals, because they had been kind to him, an idle sluggard, and had not scorned his peasant toil. And he built a ship--not a ship exactly, but a boat--so that they could sail across the ocean-sea, up to Pettifoggers Street.