The damp branches, falling on the fire, crackled and
rustled plaintively, and the accordion teasingly played a lively
tune, while the falsetto of the singer reinforced and completed
its loud tones.
Apart from them all, on the brink of a small ravine, lay three
young fellows, and before them stood Yozhov, who spoke in a
ringing voice:
"You bear the sacred banner of labour. And I, like yourselves, am
a private soldier in the same army. We all serve Her Majesty, the
Press. And we must live in firm, solid friendship."
"That's true, Nikolay Matveyich!" some one's thick voice
interrupted him. "And we want to ask you to use your influence
with the publisher! Use your influence with him! Illness and
drunkenness cannot be treated as one and the same thing. And,
according to his system, it comes out thus; if one of us gets
drunk he is fined to the amount of his day's earnings; if he
takes sick the same is done. We ought to be permitted to present
the doctor's certificate, in case of sickness, to make it
certain; and he, to be just, ought to pay the substitute at least
half the wages of the sick man.
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