“You don’t have to worry about such matters when you deal with me,” he assured them, at the same time thinking of his wife. “You’ll really pay twice the regular wages?” “I told you not to worry about that, you blockheads! You’ll get higher pay from me than from anybody else, and you’ll work considerably less.” They all parted in great contentment. And Drabkin told himself that he had won a victory over his wife after all.... “To-morrow four operators will come here,” he announced to Chyenke when he came home that night. And he began to recite their names. “Abraham, who used to work for Abraham Baer; Labke, who....” “What are you going to pay them?” she interrupted, scrutinising him closely from under her furrowed brows. He was silent. He wondered what figure he could name. “Why don’t you speak?” she asked, more sternly than before, eyeing him more closely. Suddenly he became bold and self-assertive. Why need he fear her? He’d tell her point-blank! And if she didn’t like it, she’d have to ... that’s all! With a smiling countenance he repeated the details of his arrangements with the workingmen. “May evil dreams descend upon the heads of all my enemies,” she shrieked, slapping her palms indignantly together. “Are you drunk, or crazy? There’s a millionaire for you! What’s a few hundred roubles to you? Here! Take my dowry and give it away!...” “You don’t like it? Then don’t!” he answered gruffly. “I refuse to be like the rest of them. I will not be a cut-purse!” “Look at him!—A cut-purse!” she snarled venomously. “Fine business man you are! Am I, a proprietor, and now with child, to work fourteen and fifteen hours a day, and have my own employés go around in my place like men of leisure? My enemies won’t live to see it! May they waste in illness as long as such a thing never was and never will be!” ... “I’ve already told you,” he interrupted incisively, “if you don’t like it, then don’t!” “What kind of words are those!” she screamed. “I’ll have you understand that meanwhile _I_ am the boss, and the money is _mine_!... Did you bring such a pile to it? Then things will be as I wish them to be. You’ll see whether they work for me or not. What do you think of the fellow? Wants to be a public benefactor! H’m!” “Listen to me, Chyenke. None of your tricks, now!” “None of _your_ tricks! What are you going to do about it? Beat me? I’m not afraid of such trifles!...” She was now shrieking shrilly. He looked at her angrily and gnashed his teeth. Suddenly she threw on her coat and ran off to her parents.... An hour later, her father, her mother, her father’s brother Jonah the tailor, and her mother’s brother Jehiel the cobbler, stalked into the room, preceded by Chyenke, whose face shone with triumph. Drabkin greeted them with none too happy a countenance, and continued his work at the machine. “What’s the trouble here between you?” began Grunim the glazier.