“...Maxim immediately rushed to his box for a hook, and I ran to Sashka. I see he’s dragging something heavy. “Don’t rush, Alexander,” I tell him. - Now Max will bring the gaff, we’ll help. And Sashka, maybe, would be glad to hurry up, but he can’t. Slowly, slowly, he dragged his prey to the ice, but he couldn’t get it into the hole. Then, without waiting for Maxim, holding the taut fishing line with his left hand, he dipped his right hand into the hole. And then he yelled obscenities! I even shuddered in surprise and had time to think that, most likely, I had been pricked by a perch’s fin. Sashka, without ceasing to yell, pulled his hand out of the hole, and Maxim, who ran up, saw that something incomprehensible, black was hanging on his fingers...”