a show of being highly delighted with his own speech. . . .  Listening to him and answering “R-r-r-r,” Kashtanka fell to sniffing the corners.  In one of the corners she found a little trough in which she saw some soaked peas and a sop of rye crusts.  She tried the peas; they were not nice; she tried the sopped bread and began eating it.  The gander was not at all offended that the strange dog was eating his food, but, on the contrary, talked even more excitedly, and to show his confidence went to the trough and ate a few peas himself.

IV

Marvels on a Hurdle

A little while afterwards the stranger came in again, and brought a strange thing with him like a hurdle, or like the figure II.  On the crosspiece on the top of this roughly made wooden frame hung a bell, and a pistol was also tied to it; there were strings from the tongue of the bell, and the trigger of the pistol.  The stranger put the frame in the middle of the room, spent a long time tying and untying something, then looked at the gander and said:  “Ivan Ivanitch, if you please!”

The gander went up to him and stood in an expectant attitude.

“Now then,” said the stranger, “let us begin at the very beginning.  First of all, bow and make a curtsey!  Look sharp!”

Ivan Ivanitch craned his neck, nodded in all directions, and scraped with his foot.

“Right.  Bravo. . . .  Now die!”

The gander lay on his back and stuck his legs in the air.  After performing a few more similar, unimportant tricks, the stranger suddenly clutched at his head, and assuming an expression of horror, shouted:  “Help!  Fire!  We are burning!”

Ivan Ivanitch ran to the frame, took the string in his beak, and set the bell ringing.

The stranger was very much pleased.  He stroked the gander’s neck and said: 

“Bravo, Ivan Ivanitch!  Now pretend that you are a jeweller selling gold and diamonds.  Imagine now that you go to your shop and find thieves there.  What would you do in that case?”

The gander took the other string in his beak and pulled it, and at once a deafening report was heard.  Kashtanka was highly delighted with the bell ringing, and the shot threw her into so much ecstasy that she ran round the frame barking.

“Auntie, lie down!” cried the stranger; “be quiet!”

Ivan Ivanitch’s task was not ended with the shooting.  For a whole hour afterwards the stranger drove the gander round him on a cord, cracking a whip, and the gander had to jump over barriers and through hoops; he had to rear, that is, sit on his tail and wave his legs in the air.  Kashtanka could not take her eyes off Ivan Ivanitch, wriggled with delight, and several times fell to running after him with shrill barks.  After exhausting the gander and himself, the stranger wiped the sweat from his brow and cried: 

“Marya, fetch Havronya Ivanovna here!”