the suite-cossacks dashed up to platoff and said: "here they are themselves!"

platoff immediately addressed the artisans: "ready?"

"quite ready," they replied.

"hand it over."

[pg 45]

they gave it to him.

the carriage was already harnessed, and the coachman and the postillion were in their places. the cossacks immediately seated themselves beside the coachman, and raised their whips over him, and, after executing a flourish, held them so.

platoff tore off the green case, opened the casket, drew the golden snuff-box from the soft cotton, and from the snuff-box the diamond as big as a walnut, and beheld the english flea lying there exactly as before, and nothing else whatever.

says platoff: "what's this? and where is your work, wherewith you wished to solace the emperor?"

the gunsmiths reply: "our work is here, also."

platoff inquires: "wherein does it consist?"

and the gunsmiths reply: "why[pg 46] declare that? all is here, before your eyes—and you can look."

platoff shrugged his shoulders and shouted: "where is the key to the flea?"

"here, also," they answered. "where the flea is, there, also, is the key, in one and the same walnut."

platoff tried to grasp the key, but his fingers were blunt; he fumbled and fumbled, but could not manage to get hold either of the flea, or of the key which projected from the machinery in its belly, and all at once he flew into a rage, and began to curse in words after the cossack fashion. he shouted: "what do you mean, you rascals? you have made nothing, and have spoiled the whole thing, to boot! i'll cut your heads off!"

but the men of tula made reply: "without cause do you thus abuse us. we must suffer all insults from you, as[pg 47] from the emperor's emissary, but just because you have doubted us and have thought that we are capable of deceiving even the imperial name, we will not tell you our secret, but you will please to carry it to the emperor. he will see what sort of people he has in us, and whether he will suffer shame because of us."

but platoff roared: "come, you are lying, you rascals! i'll not part from you, but one of you shall go to petrograd with me, and there i will put him to the question as to the nature of your cunning devices."

thereupon, he stretched out his hand, seized the squint-eyed, left-handed smith by the collar with his stubby fingers, so that all the hooks flew off the man's coat, and flung him at his feet in the calash.

"sit here," says he, "in the manner of a poodle, until we get to petrograd[pg 48]—you shall answer to me for all of them. and you," says he to the cossacks of the suite, "whip up, there! don't dawdle! see that you get me to the emperor in petrograd the day after to-morrow."

the artisans merely ventured to say to him, on behalf of their comrade: "how can you take him from us thus without a tugament?[23] he will not be able to come back."

but platoff, in place of answer, showed them his fist,—such a horrible fist,—dark red and all slashed, seemingly grown together here and there—and menacing them, he said: "here's his tugament for you!"

and to the cossacks he said: "whip up, my lads!"

cossacks, coachman, and horses all began to work simultaneously, and bore[pg 49] away the left-handed man without his tugament; and the next day but one, as platoff had commanded, they whirled him up to the emperor's palace, and even, having over-galloped as was befitting, they drove past the columns.

platoff rose, fastened on his orders, and went to the emperor, commanding the cossacks of the suite to stand guard at the entrance over the squint-eyed, left-handed smith.