"'A fine joke!' I said, putting in my oar. 'You looked at the trees, and you will at once tear them down. You fell on the fruit like a wolf. You saw the garden, and at once wanted to buy. Now you want the ring, and will exchange for it your wares. What sort of tomfoolery are you talking to us? You are either crazy yourself or will make others so. The apple falls not far from the stem--one sees that in you.' "'Aunt Hripsime, why are you so cross? Dare one not jest?' "'Enough, enough; I understand your joke very well,' I cried indignantly. "Yes, we women scolded him right well, but Sarkis said no earthly word. He sat there dumb and speechless as the stick in my hand. The Lord God gave him a tongue to speak with, but, dear heaven, he sat there like a clod and never uttered a syllable. I was like to burst with wrath. "Then that unscrupulous fellow repeated his speech. 'Don't you understand a joke? Have you, then, no sense of fun?' He would have struck us over the ear, and that the fellow called a joke! And how the creature looked! His face was like a drum-skin. It was as though someone had wiped off the holy oil from this grimacing mask with a butcher's sponge. Yes, here you see how people become rich; how they get hold of other people's property. Conscience hunts the scoundrel to the deuce: he lets his skin grow thick; feigns outwardly to be dull; if anyone spits in his face he regards it only as a May-shower; if anyone goes for him for his rascality, he takes it as a joke. And so the rascals become rich! One must be born to those things, that's the way I see it. "If you knew all that we said to this scoundrel's face! We all but seized him by the collar and threw him out the gate. We belabored him well, but the fellow stood as if dumb, remained silent, and laughed in our faces as if we had been speaking to each other and not to him. He neither took the watch out of his pocket nor the ring from his finger. Finally, I thought to myself, 'I will wait a little and see what will happen.' "And do you know what this bad fellow said to our Sarkis after a short silence? 'Your watch and ring please me well, old fellow. Let me take them for a month or two. I will send them to Moscow and have some like them made for myself. As soon as I get them back I will give them back to you unhurt.' "Our stupid Sarkis dared not say no, and he had his way. "'Take them,' said Sarkis, 'but take care that they do not go astray, for--' "'But what are you thinking about?' answered the scoundrel. 'Am I then--. Where do you buy your calico?' the scoundrel began after a pause. 'How much do you pay an ell? Where do you buy your linen cloth? How high does it come by the ell? Where do you buy your silk and satin?' "Heaven knows what all he prated about, and Sarkis answered him and told everything just as it really was. "'We buy our manufactured goods of Yellow Pogos,' and told the prices of everything without reserve.