"I shall tell that to the master himself, inside there, when he has quite finished his devotions. It is his habit every night, before he lies down, to fire off his gun, then I will approach him. Meanwhile sit down beside me! Look ye, this bench can very well hold the pair of us, let us have a little talk together." The stranger thereupon doffed his little round furred cap and his long black trussed-up locks fell in curling ringlets about his shoulders. "'Tis a woman, a woman indeed!" whispered Ivan and the dame of the house to each other. The latter now approached the enigmatical shape a little more boldly, and sitting down beside him, opened a conversation with him. "What, pray, is your business with my husband?" "Come, come, my dear creature! You have no right to put such questions to me. You ought rather to ask me whether I am hungry and would like some supper. You would not have to ask me that twice I can assure you." The woman, at this hint, arose sullenly and took from a wainscot cupboard a plate of hearth cakes which she set before the stranger. "I suppose, sir, you don't mind eating off the headsman's platter?" said she. "Stuff! What if I am of the same profession!" "Oh, of course! I can see that from those soft white little hands of yours which are not such as the hands of a man ought to be." But the words were scarce out of her mouth when the virago uttered a loud scream, for the little white paws she had just tapped suddenly pressed her huge fleshy palm so vigorously that every bone in it cracked. "Satan take him!--'tis a man, not a doubt of it!" whispered the woman to Ivan. "He has a hand like an iron vice." The stranger had an excellent appetite. There was absolutely nothing at the bottom of the platter when he had finished eating. "Pardon!" cried he at last, "perhaps I ought not to have gobbled up everything. Perchance this was set aside for someone who does not happen to be at home just now." "Oh, don't be uneasy on that score, we have all had our suppers." "But this is not the whole family I suppose? Have you no children?" "Yes," replied the woman, and as she spoke she durst not lift her eyes to the stranger's face. "I have a daughter." "Really your own child?" The woman looked hesitatingly at the stranger, twice she attempted to speak and twice the words seemed to stick in her throat. "Yes, my own child," she said at last. "And have you no other 'prentice but this one, Dame Zudár?" "No, why should I?" "And are you two able to carry on the business?--for I suppose there are all sorts of things to be done?" "Good heart alive! The less you say about the headsman's trade the better."