“Where is the accursed thing,” he says. “Show it me and smash it.” But I say, “I’ve not got it.” I’d hidden it myself in a net in the outhouse. I knew they could not find it.

So they left me. Yet after all I recovered. When I went for my BALALAYKA — What was I saying?’ he continued. ‘Listen to me, and keep farther away from the other men or you’ll get killed foolishly. I feel for you, truly: you are a drinker — I love you! And fellows like you like riding up the mounds. There was one who lived here who had come from Russia, he always would ride up the mounds (he called the mounds so funnily, “hillocks”). Whenever he saw a mound, off he’d gallop. Once he galloped off that way and rode to the top quite pleased, but a