At that very moment the red kitten suddenly appeared in the yard. Leisurely he entered the courtyard, gracefully lifting his paws, trotting along with tail erect, and evidently without the slightest fear of coming to grief beneath the feet of the crowd frantically careering round Zazubrina and the bespattered hobbledehoy, who was violently rubbing away with the palm of his hand the mass of oil and verdigris which covered his face. "My brothers!" someone suddenly exclaimed, "pussy is coming." "Pussy! Ah, the little rogue!" "What ho, ginger! Puss, puss, puss!" They caught up the cat and he was passed from hand to hand; everybody caressed him. "Look, there's no starving there! What a fat little tummy!" "What a big cat he's growing!" "And what claws he has got, the little devil!" "Let him go! Let him play as he likes!" "Well, I'll give him a back! Play away, puss!" Zazubrina was deserted. He stood alone, wiping the green paint off his whiskers with his fingers, and watched the kitten leaping on to the backs and shoulders of the prisoners. Whenever he displayed a wish to sit still on any particular shoulder or back, the men would wriggle about and shake him off, and then he would set off leaping and bounding again from one shoulder to the next. This diverted them all exceedingly, and the laughter was incessant. "Come, my friends! let us paint the cat!" resounded the voice of Zazubrina. It sounded just as if Zazubrina, in proposing this pastime, at the same time begged them to consent to it. There was a commotion among the crowd of prisoners. "But it will be the death of him," cried one. "Paint the poor beast--what a thing to say!" "What! paint a live animal, Zazubrina! You deserve a hiding!" "I call it a devilish good joke," cried a little, broad-shouldered man with a fiery-red beard, enthusiastically. Zazubrina already held the kitten in his hands, and went with it towards the pail of paint, and then Zazubrina began singing: "Look, my brothers! look at that! See me paint the ginger cat! Paint him well, and paint him green, And then we'll dance upon the scene." There was a burst of laughter, and holding their sides, the prisoners made a way in their midst, and I saw quite plainly how Zazubrina, seizing the kitten by the tail, flung it into the pail, and then fell a singing and dancing: "Stop that mewing! cease to squall! Would you your godfather maul?" Peals of laughter! "Oh, crooked-bellied Judas!" piped one squeaky voice. "Alas, Batyushka!"[2] groaned another. [2] Little father.