“And I thirteen and a half. Allow me to ask you why! According to the rulings of the administration, every one of us is supposed to get the same amount--fifteen rubles a month, and light and heat. Who was it that allotted you and me twelve, or say, thirteen and a half rubles? Allow me to ask you?--And you say it is not so bad a life? Understand me well, it is not about the three or one and a half rubles I am wrangling about--but even if they paid me the whole amount--Last month I was at the station when the director happened to pass. I saw him there. Had the honor. He occupied a whole private car by himself--on the station he alighted and stood on the platform, looking--no, I will not stay here long; I shall go where my eyes will lead me.” “But where will you go, Stepanich? Let well alone, you will not find it much better anywhere. You have a home here, warmth, and a bit of land. Your wife is an able workwoman--” “Land! You ought to see the land I have--why, there isn’t a stick on it. This spring I planted some cabbages. Well, one day the track-master passed: ‘What is this?’ he says. ‘Why did you not report it? Why not have waited for permission? Dig it out at once and not a vestige should be left of it.’ He was in his cups. At another time he would not have said a word, and here he got it into his head--Three rubles fine!--” For some moments Vasili pulled at his pipe in silence, then he said in a low voice: “It wanted but little more, and I would have made short work of him.” “Well, neighbor, you are a hot-head, I can tell you.” “I am not hot, I am only speaking and considering everything from the point of justice. But he will get it from me yet, the red-mug; I shall make a complaint to the master of the division in person. We shall see!” And he really complained. Once the master of the division came to make a preliminary inspection of the road. In three days’ time very important gentlemen were expected from St. Petersburg to make an inspection of the road: everything had to be made ship-shape; some new gravel was ordered before their arrival, added, leveled, and smoothed out, the sleepers were examined, the nuts tightened, the verst-posts newly painted, and the order was given that some fine yellow sand be strewn over the crossings. A track-woman even drove her old man out of the nearest watch-house, which he almost never left, in order to trim a little the tiny grass-plot. Semen worked a whole week to bring everything into first-rate order, even mended his coat and burnished his brass shield till it shone. Vasili also worked hard. At last the division master arrived in a buzzing draisine (hand car), worked by four men and making twenty versts an hour. It came flying toward Semen’s watch-house, and Semen sprang forward and reported in military fashion. Everything appeared to be correct. “Are you long here?” asked the master. “Since the second of May, your honor.” “Very well, thank you. And who is at Number 164?”