"Fine masters these--masters who grudge one a groat, and squander a rouble! What if a fire WERE to break out? Oh, the blockheads!" Presently, the proprietors in person issued into the courtyard--the stout, bald Peter Birkin, a man whose face was flushed even to the whites of his shifty eyes, and, close behind him, eke his shadow, Jonah Birkin--a person of sandy, sullen mien, and overhanging brows, and dull, heavy eyes. "Good day, dear sir," said Peter Birkin thinly, as with a puffy hand he raised from his head a cloth cap, while Jonah nodded. And then, with a sidelong glance at myself, asked in a deep bass voice: "Who is this young man?" Large and important like peacocks, the pair then shuffled across the wet yard, and in so doing, went to much trouble to avoid soiling their polished shoes. Next Peter said to his brother: "Have you noticed that the water-butts are rotted? Oh, that fine Yakinika! He ought long ago to have been dismissed." "Who is that young man over there?" Jonah repeated with an air of asperity. "The son of his father and mother," Gubin replied quietly, and without so much as a glance at the brothers. "Well, come along," snuffled Peter with a drawling of his vowels. "It is high time that we were moving. It doesn't matter who the young man may be." And with that they slip-slopped across to the entrance gates, while Gubin gazed after them with knitted brows, and as the brothers were disappearing through the wicket said carelessly: "The old sheep! They live solely by the wits of their stepmother, and if it were not for her, they would long ago have come to grief. Yes, she is a woman beyond words clever. Once upon a time there were three brothers--Peter, Alexis, and Jonah; but, unfortunately, Alexis got killed in a brawl. A fine, tall fellow HE was, whereas these two are a pair of gluttons, like everyone else in this town. Not for nothing do three loaves figure on the municipal arms! Now, to work again! Or shall we take a rest?" Here there stepped on to the veranda a tall, well-grown young woman in an open pink bodice and a blue skirt who, shading blue eyes with her hand, scanned the courtyard and the steps, and said with some diffidence: "Good day, Yakov Vasilitch." With a good-humoured glance in response, and his mouth open, Gubin waved a hand in greeting: "Good day to YOU, Nadezhda Ivanovna," he replied. "How are you this morning?" Somehow this made her blush, and cross her arms upon her ample bosom, while her kindly, rounded, eminently Russian face evinced the ghost of a shy smile. At the same time, it was a face wherein not a single feature was of a kind to remain fixed in the memory, a face as vacant as though nature had forgotten to stamp thereon a single wish. Hence, even when the woman smiled there seemed to remain a doubt whether the smile had really materialised. "How is Natalia Vasilievna?" continued Gubin. "Much as usual," the woman answered softly.