"To the Mayor of the Commune of Lipa. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen. The chief commanded that the soldier lists be ready after the Mother of God, and the registers with you in the parish with the priest, and also our men go to you to harvest; do you understand? That they be written out, and the harvesters too, to send before the Mother of God, as eighteen years are finished; for if you do not do this you will catch it on the head, which I wish to myself and you. Amen." The worthy mayor heard every Sunday how the priest ended his sermon with Amen, so the ending seemed to him as final as it was appropriate to all the demands of polite style; but Zolzik began to laugh. "How is that?" inquired he. "Well, write better you." "Certainly I will write, because I blush for all Barania-Glova." Zolzik sat down, took the pen in his hand, made a number of circles with it, as if to acquire impetus, and then fell to writing rapidly. The notice was soon ready; the author straightened his hair, and read as follows:-- "The Mayor of the Commune of Barania-Glova to the Mayor of the Commune of Lipa. As the recruiting lists are to be ready at command of superior authority on such and such a day of such and such a year, the Mayor of the Commune of Lipa is notified that the register of those peasants of Barania-Glova, which is in the chancery of his parish, is to be taken by him from that chancery and sent at the very earliest date to the Commune of Barania-Glova. The peasants of the Commune of Barania-Glova who are at work in Lipa are to be presented in Barania-Glova on the same day as the register." The mayor caught those sounds with eager ear; and his face expressed an occupation and a concentration of spirit that was well-nigh religious. How beautiful and solemn all that seemed to him; how thoroughly official it was! Take, for example, even that beginning: "As the recruiting lists, etc." The mayor adored that "as;" but he never could learn it, or rather he knew how to begin with it, but not a word farther could he go. From Zolzik's hand that flowed just like water; so that even in the chancery of the district no one wrote better. Next he blackened the seal, struck it on the paper so that the table quivered, and all was there finished! "Well, that is a head for you, that is a head!" said the mayor. "Yes," answered Zolzik, mollified; "but then a writer [secretary] is one who writes books--" "Do you write books too?" "You ask as if you did not know; but the chancery books, who writes them?" "True," said the mayor, who added, after a while, "The lists will come now with the speed of a thunderbolt." "But next do you see to ridding the village of useless people." "How are you to get rid of them?"