"And what can I take him, my Stahova? It is not possible to go with empty hands to him. The mayor is better; you can take him white crawfish, or butter, or linen under your arm, or a hen; he will take anything without grumbling. But the secretary won't look. Oh, he is terribly proud! For him you must just open your handkerchief, and out with a ruble!" "Ye'll not wait," muttered the secretary to himself, "till I take eggs or a hen from you. Am I some kind of a bribe-snatcher? But go with your hen to the mayor." Thus thinking, he pushed apart the branches of the cherry-tree and was going to call to the women, when he heard all at once the sound of a brichka behind him. The secretary turned and looked. In the brichka was sitting Pan Victor, a young student, with his cap on the side of his head, and a cigarette between his teeth; the brichka was driven by that Franek of whom the women were talking a moment before. The student bent over the side of the brichka, saw Pan Zolzik, waved his hand to him, and cried,-- "How art thou, Pan Zolzik? What news in the village? Dost thou always pomade thy hair two inches deep?" "The servant of my lord benefactor!" said Zolzik, bowing low. But when the brichka had gone a short distance, he muttered,-- "May thy neck break before the end of the journey!" The secretary could not endure that student. He was a cousin of the Skorabevskis, and came to visit them every summer. Zolzik not only could not endure the young man, but feared him like fire, for he was always jesting; a great rogue, he made a fool of Zolzik as if purposely, and was the only man in the whole place who made no account of him. Once even Pan Victor had happened in during a session of the communal council, and told Zolzik explicitly that he was an idiot, and the peasants that they had no need to obey him. Zolzik would have been glad to take revenge; but--what could he do to the student? As to others, he knew even something of each one, but of Pan Victor he knew nothing.