LUKA:--Yes. They crept higher, and I took my rifle and went outside. I looked up--two men, opening a window, and so busy that they did not see anything of me at all. I cried to them: Hey, there, get out of that! And would you think it, they fell on me with a hand ax! I warned them. Halt, I cried, or else I fire! Then I aimed first at one and then at the other. They fell on their knees saying, Pardon us! I was pretty hot--on account of the hand ax, you remember. You devils, I cried, I told you to clear out and you didn't! And now, I said, one of you go into the brush and get a switch. It was done. And now, I commanded, one of you stretch out on the ground, and the other thrash him. And so they whipped each other at my command. And when they had each had a sound beating, they said to me: Grandfather, said they, for the sake of Christ give us a piece of bread. We haven't a bite in our bodies. They, my daughter, were the thieves who had fallen upon me with the hand ax. Yes, they were a pair of splendid fellows. I said to them, If you had asked for bread! Then they answered: We had gotten past that. We had asked and asked, and nobody would give us anything. Endurance was worn out. Nyah--and so they remained with me the whole winter. One of them, Stephen by name, liked to take the rifle and go into the woods. And the other, Jakoff, was constantly ill, always coughing. The three of us watched the place, and when spring came, they said, Farewell, grandfather, and went away--to Russia. NATASHA:--Were they convicts, escaping? LUKA:--They were fugitives--they had left their colony. A pair of splendid fellows. If I had not had pity on them--who knows what would have happened? They might have killed me. Then they would be taken to court again, put in prison, sent back to Siberia--why all that? You can learn nothing good in prison, nor in Siberia. But a man, what can he not learn! The Menagerie (_Night in a County Workhouse_) BY UPTON SINCLAIR Oh come, ye lords and ladies of the realm, Come from your couches soft, your perfumed halls, Come watch with me throughout the weary hours. Here are there sounds to thrill your jaded nerves, Such as the cave-men, your forefathers, heard, Crouching in forests of primeval night; Here tier on tier in steel-barred cages pent The beasts ye breed and hunt throughout the world. Hark to that snore--some beast that slumbers deep; Hark to that roar--some beast that dreams of blood; Hark to that moan--some beast that wakes and weeps; And then in sudden stillness mark the sound-- Some beast that rasps his vermin-haunted hide!