“We’ve been making bombs with the snow,” said Peter; “and playing at the Revolution. Kolia was a policeman and I was a Social Democrat, and I made a bomb and threw it at him and killed him.” “How dare you play such games?” said their mother--“that’s all your fault,” she added to her husband; “it’s you who have put such ideas into their heads. Heaven knows when children begin to get such ideas; I think the end of the world is come. Look at our schools: the children can’t read; the universities are all in the hands of the Jews. The girls at school have all gone quite mad. Nothing but hysteria, hysteria, hysteria! It’s a disgrace. Don’t let me ever hear of your playing such games again,” she said to the children. The children, used to perpetual scolding, said nothing. Alexander Petrovitch laughed. “At least, I hope,” said his wife, “that the result of all this, and of your having to do all this extra work, will be that you will get promotion.” “I doubt it,” said Alexander Petrovitch. “I have got no protection, and protection is everything. I have finished my dinner. I want some tea.” His wife called Sasha, the maid, and told her to bring the samovar, and then scolded her violently because it was not ready. She then made a further scene about the way in which the lemon was cut. Finally the samovar was brought, Alexander Petrovitch was given his tea and began smoking cigarette after cigarette in gloomy silence. His wife sat at the head of the table and said nothing. The children played in the corner with some wooden soldiers, and every now and then a dull boom was heard outside, and once or twice the window shook and rattled. “Guns!” said Alexander Petrovitch. “They are firing in the Tverskaia, I suppose.” At that moment the bell rang. “I think,” said Alexander Petrovitch’s wife, “that it must be Ivan Ivanovitch; he said he would come round this evening if he could.” “I shall have to go presently,” said Alexander Petrovitch; “I’ve got to go back to the office.” Then the door was opened, and seven or eight people walked into the room. They were young schoolboys and students between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, and there were two girls with them. Alexander Petrovitch and his wife were surprised at this influx of guests, and the children stood up in the corner and stared. “Whom have I the honour to address and what can I do for you?” said Alexander Petrovitch. A young student with long black hair, a seedy overcoat, and a worn fur cap appeared to be the spokesman of the group, and, taking off his cap, said: “We are the representatives of the flying column of the Social Revolutionaries. We have come to carry out our orders.”