“Wait a minute, lads!” he shouts.  “Wait!  Don’t be in a hurry to pull him out, you’ll lose him.  You must do it properly!”

Yefim joins the carpenters and all three, shoving each other with their knees and their elbows, puffing and swearing at one another, bustle about the same spot.  Lubim, the hunchback, gets a mouthful of water, and the air rings with his hard spasmodic coughing.

“Where’s the shepherd?” comes a shout from the bank.  “Yefim!  Shepherd!  Where are you?  The cattle are in the garden!  Drive them out, drive them out of the garden!  Where is he, the old brigand?”

First men’s voices are heard, then a woman’s.  The master himself, Andrey Andreitch, wearing a dressing-gown made of a Persian shawl and carrying a newspaper in his hand, appears from behind the garden fence.  He looks inquiringly towards the shouts which come from the river, and then trips rapidly towards the bathing shed.

“What’s this?  Who’s shouting?” he asks sternly, seeing through the branches of the willow the three wet heads of the fishermen.  “What are you so busy about there?”

“Catching a fish,” mutters Yefim, without raising his head.

“I’ll give it to you!  The beasts are in the garden and he is fishing! . . .  When will that bathing shed be done, you devils?  You’ve been at work two days, and what is there to show for it?”

“It . . . will soon be done,” grunts Gerassim; summer is long, you’ll have plenty of time to wash, your honour. . . .  Pfrrr! . . .  We can’t manage this eel-pout here anyhow. . . .  He’s got under a root and sits there as if he were in a hole and won’t budge one way or another . . . .”

“An eel-pout?” says the master, and his eyes begin to glisten.  “Get him out quickly then.”

“You’ll give us half a rouble for it presently if we oblige you . . . .  A huge eel-pout, as fat as a merchant’s wife. . . .  It’s worth half a rouble, your honour, for the trouble. . . .  Don’t squeeze him, Lubim, don’t squeeze him, you’ll spoil him!  Push him up from below!  Pull the root upwards, my good man . . . what’s your name?  Upwards, not downwards, you brute!  Don’t swing your legs!”

Five minutes pass, ten. . . .  The master loses all patience.

“Vassily!” he shouts, turning towards the garden.  “Vaska!  Call Vassily to me!”

The coachman Vassily runs up.  He is chewing something and breathing hard.

“Go into the water,” the master orders him.  “Help them to pull out that eel-pout.  They can’t get him out.”

Vassily rapidly undresses and gets into the water.

“In a minute. . . .  I’ll get him in a minute,” he mutters.  “Where’s the eel-pout?  We’ll have him out in a trice!  You’d better go, Yefim.  An old man like you ought to be minding his own business instead of being here.  Where’s that eel-pout?  I’ll have him in a minute . . . .  Here he is!  Let go.”

“What’s the good of saying that?  We know all about that!  You get it out!”