'Well,' said I, 'if that cart were to move on a little, would it break the goose's neck or not?'
'It'd be sure to break it,' and he grinned all over his face, highly delighted.
'Come on, then,' said I, 'let's try.'
'Let's,' he said.
And it did not take us long to arrange: he stood at the bridle without being noticed, and I stood on one side to direct the goose.
And the owner wasn't looking, he was talking to someone, so I had nothing to do, the goose thrust its head in after the oats of itself, under the cart, just under the wheel.
I winked at the lad, he tugged at the bridle, and crack. The goose's neck was broken in half.
And, as luck would have it, all the peasants saw us at that moment and they kicked up a shindy at once.
'You did that on purpose!'
'No, not on purpose.'
'Yes, you did, on purpose!'
Well, they shouted,
'Take him to the justice of the peace!'
They took me, too.
'You were there, too,' they said, 'you helped, you're known all over the market!'
And, for some reason, I really am known all over the market," Kolya added conceitedly. "We all went off to the justice's, they brought the goose, too.
The fellow was crying in a great funk, simply blubbering like a woman.
And the farmer kept shouting that you could kill any number of geese like that.
Well, of course, there were witnesses.
The justice of the peace settled it in a minute, that the farmer was to be paid a rouble for the goose, and the fellow to have the goose.
And he was warned not to play such pranks again.
And the fellow kept blubbering like a woman.
'It wasn't me,' he said, 'it was he egged me on,' and he pointed to me.
I answered with the utmost composure that I hadn't egged him on, that I simply stated the general proposition, had spoken hypothetically.
The justice of the peace smiled and was vexed with himself once for having smiled.
'I'll complain to your masters of you, so that for the future you mayn't waste your time on such general propositions, instead of sitting at your books and learning your lessons.'
He didn't complain to the masters, that was a joke, but the matter noised abroad and came to the ears of the masters. Their ears are long, you know!
The classical master, Kolbasnikov, was particularly shocked about it, but Dardanelov got me off again.
But Kolbasnikov is savage with everyone now like a green ass.
Did you know, Ilusha, he is just married, got a dowry of a thousand roubles, and his bride's a regular fright of the first rank and the last degree.
The third-class fellows wrote an epigram on it:
Astounding news has reached the class, Kolbasnikov has been an ass.
And so on, awfully funny, I'll bring it to you later on.
I say nothing against Dardanelov, he is a learned man, there's no doubt about it.
I respect men like that and it's not because he stood up for me."
"But you took him down about the founders of Troy!" Smurov put in suddenly, proud of Krassotkin at such a moment.
He was particularly pleased with the story of the goose.
"Did you really take him down?" the captain inquired, in a flattering way. "On the question who founded Troy?
We heard of it, Ilusha told me about it at the time."
"He knows everything, father, he knows more than any of us!" put in Ilusha; "he only pretends to be like that, but really he is top in every subject..."
Ilusha looked at Kolya with infinite happiness.
"Oh, that's all nonsense about Troy, a trivial matter.
I consider this an unimportant question," said Kolya with haughty humility.
He had by now completely recovered his dignity, though he was still a little uneasy. He felt that he was greatly excited and that he had talked about the goose, for instance, with too little reserve, while Alyosha had looked serious and had not said a word all the time. And the vain boy began by degrees to have a rankling fear that Alyosha was silent because he despised him, and thought he was showing off before him.
If he dared to think anything like that, Kolya would-
"I regard the question as quite a trivial one," he rapped out again, proudly.
"And I know who founded Troy," a boy, who had not spoken before, said suddenly, to the surprise of everyone. He was silent and seemed to be shy. He was a pretty boy of about eleven, called Kartashov.
He was sitting near the door.
Kolya looked at him with dignified amazement.
The fact was that the identity of the founders of Troy had become a secret for the whole school, a secret which could only be discovered by reading Smaragdov, and no one had Smaragdov but Kolya.