The police superintendent Otchumyelov is walking across the market square wearing a new overcoat and carrying a parcel under his arm.

A red-haired policeman strides after him with a sieve full of confiscated gooseberries in his hands.

There is silence all around. Not a soul in the square.

The open doors of the shops and taverns look out upon God's world disconsolately, like hungry mouths; there is not even a beggar near them.

"So you bite, you damned brute?" Otchumyelov hears suddenly. "Lads, don't let him go! Biting is prohibited nowadays! Hold him! ah. ah!" There is the sound of a dog yelping.

Otchumyelov looks in the direction of the sound and sees a dog, hopping on three legs and looking about her, run out of Pitchugin's timber-yard.

A man in a starched cotton shirt, with his waistcoat unbuttoned, is chasing her.

He runs after her, and throwing his body forward falls down and seizes the dog by her hind legs.

Once more there is a yelping and a shout of "Don't let go!" Sleepy countenances are protruded from the shops, and soon a crowd, which seems to have sprung out of the earth, is gathered round the timber-yard.

"It looks like a row, your honour," says the policeman.