BARSSEGH. So that he will not let me pass by in the streets? Do you want him to make me the talk of the town? KHALI. Then don't speak to him any more. BARSSEGH. As if I took pleasure in it! It is all the same to him whether one speaks to him or not. KHALI. What are we to do with him, then? BARSSEGH [_angrily_]. Why do you fasten yourself on to me like a gadfly? Have I not trouble enough already? [_Beating his hands together_.] How could you let him escape? You are good for nothing! KHALI. What could I do, then, if you were stingy about the money? If you had promised the 10,000 rubles, you would have seen how easily and quickly everything would have been arranged. BARSSEGH. If he insists upon so much he may go to the devil. For 10,000 rubles I will find a better man for my daughter. KHALI. I know whom you mean. Give me the money and I will arrange the thing to-day. BARSSEGH [_derisively_]. Give it! How easily you can say it! Is that a mulberry-tree, then, that one has only to shake and thousands will fall from it? Don't hold my rubles so cheaply; for every one of them I have sold my soul twenty times. KHALI. If I can only get sight of that insolent Salome, I'll shake a cart-load of dirt over her head. Only let her meet me! [_Exit, left_. SCENE V BARSSEGH [_alone_]. And you shall see what I will do! Only wait, my dear Ossep! I am getting a day of joy ready for you and you will shed tears as thick as my thumb. I have been looking for the chance a long time, and now fate has delivered you into my hands. You braggart, you shall see how you will lie at my feet. I am the son of the cobbler Matus. There are certain simpletons who shake their heads over those who had nothing and suddenly amount to something. But I tell you that this world is nothing more than a great honey-cask. He who carries away the best part for himself, without letting the others come near it, he is the man to whom praise and honor are due. But a man who stands aside, like Ossep, and waits till his turn comes is an ass. _Enter Dartscho_. BARSSEGH. Ah, Dartscho! How quickly you have come! DARTSCHO. I met Micho just now, and he told me that you had sent for me. BARSSEGH. I have something important to speak with you about. [_He sits down_.] Where were you just now? DARTSCHO. At George's, the coal man. He owed us some money, and I have been to see him seven times this week on that account. BARSSEGH. He is very unpunctual. But how does it stand? Has he paid? DARTSCHO. Of course! What do you take me for? I stayed in the store as if nailed there, and when a new customer came in I repeated my demand. There was nothing left for him to do but to pay me, for shame's sake.