DISCHARGED COOK [on the oven]. Why shouldn't the old beggar live well? He's lined his pockets all right! SECOND PEASANT. Who's that up there, on the oven? SERVANTS' COOK. Oh, it's only a man. Silence. FIRST PEASANT. Well, and you too, as I noticed a while since when you were supping, have capital food to eat. SERVANTS' COOK. We can't complain. She's not mean about the food. We have wheat bread every Sunday, and fish when a holiday happens to be a fast-day too, and those who like may eat meat. SECOND PEASANT. And does any one tuck into flesh on fast-days? SERVANTS' COOK. Oh, they nearly all do! Only the old coachman--not the one who was here just now but the old one--and Simon, and I and the housekeeper, fast--all the others eat meat. SECOND PEASANT. And the master himself? SERVANTS' COOK. Catch him! Why, I bet he's forgotten there is such a thing as fasting! THIRD PEASANT. Oh Lord! FIRST PEASANT. That's the gentlefolks' way: they have got it all out of their books. 'Cos of their intelex! THIRD PEASANT. Shouldn't wonder if they feed on wheat bread every day! SERVANTS' COOK. Wheat bread indeed! Much they think of wheat bread! You should see what food they eat. No end of different things! FIRST PEASANT. In course gentlefolks' food is of an airial kind. SERVANTS' COOK. Airial, of course, but all the same they're good at stuffing themselves, they are! FIRST PEASANT. Have healthy appekites, so to say. SERVANTS' COOK. 'Cos they always rinse it down! All with sweet wines, and spirits, and fizzy liquors. They have a different one to suit every kind of food. They eat and rinse it down, and eat and rinse it down, they do. FIRST PEASANT. And so the food's floated down in proportion, so to say. SERVANTS' COOK. Ah yes, they are good at stuffing! It's awful! You see, it's not just sitting down, eating, then saying grace and going away--they're always at it! SECOND PEASANT. Like pigs with their feet in the trough! [Peasants laugh]. SERVANTS' COOK. As soon as, by God's grace, they have opened their eyes, the samovár is brought in--tea, coffee, chocolate. Hardly is the second samovár emptied, a third has to be set. Then lunch, then dinner, then again coffee. They've hardly left off, then comes tea, and all sorts of tit-bits and sweetmeats--there's never an end to it! They even lie in bed and eat! THIRD PEASANT. There now; that's good! [Laughs]. FIRST AND SECOND PEASANTS. What are you about? THIRD PEASANT. If I could only live a single day like that! SECOND PEASANT. But when do they do their work?