"Take 'em by the head, stupid," said the shopman, in a low voice. Sometimes by mistake Ilya caught hold of a live fish that was not moving. It would slip through his fingers, dart through the water wildly hither and thither, and strike its head against the sides of the barrel. "Get on! get on!" commanded the shopman, but Ilya had got a fin bone stuck in his finger, and put his hand to his mouth and began to suck the place. "Take your finger out of your mouth," resounded the bass voice of his employer. Next a big heavy hatchet was given to the boy, and he was ordered to go to the cellar and smash up ice into even-sized pieces. The ice splinters flew in his face and slipped down his neck; it was cold and dark in the cellar, and if he did not handle the axe carefully it struck the ceiling. At the end of a few minutes, Ilya, wet from head to foot, came up out of the cellar, and said to his employer, "I've broken one of the bowls somehow." His employer looked at him attentively, then said: "The first time I forgive you, especially as you came and told me, but next time I'll pull your ears off." Quite mechanically Ilya adapted himself to his new surroundings, like a little screw fitting into a big noisy machine. He got up at five o'clock every morning, cleaned the boots of his master and the family and the shopman, then went into the shop, cleaned it out, and washed down the tables and the scales. As the customers came, he fetched the goods out, and carried them to the different houses, then returned to the mid-day meal. In the afternoon there was little to do, and unless he were sent anywhere on an errand, he used to stand in the shop door and look at the busy marketing, and marvel what a number of people there were in the world, and what vast quantities of fish and meat and fruit they consumed. One day he asked the shopman, who was so like an owl:---- "Michael Ignatish!" "Well--what is it?" "What will people eat when they've caught all the fish there are, and killed all the cattle?" "Stupid!" answered the shopman. Another time he took a sheet of newspaper from the table, and settled himself in the shop door to read. But the shopman tore it out of his hand, tweaked his nose, and said crossly: "Who said you could do that, fool!"