Ivan Sirnonovich stopped hammering and turned round.

"We work eight hours – that leaves us sixteen," Mihas said, bending one finger at the word "eight" – and two at the word "sixteen." "I'm free to do as I please for sixteen hours and that gives me a lot of time for reading."

Ivan Simonovich had a keen eye. Now he instantly saw that the main thing here was not in the "sixteen hours."

"You ought to study, laddie," he said, looking at Mihas warmly.

"I'm definitely going to," Mihas replied enthusiastically. "I'm going to go to an evening school for adults."

While Ivan Simonovich was adjusting the frames, Mihas at last made up his mind to ask about something that was worrying him all the time.

"Could you tell me," he said, dropping into a conversational tone for the first time that day, "if this word – my name – will stay in the book?"

Ivan Simonovich at once guessed what Mihas was driving at.

"Naturally. It was put there to stay."

Ivan Simonovich spoke with a strange smile, but Mihas did not notice it. The foreman's words brought an excited light into his eyes and he smiled happily.

When a few days later the editor-in-chief of the publishing house signed the final proofs of the new edition of Jakub Kolas' book, he reproved the technical editor.

"The general impression is quite good!" he said, turning over the pages of the book. "But, my dear Lazar Mironovich, why can't we completely rid our books of defects? The defects may be trivial, there may be only one or two, but why should they make a point of being there at all? Here, for instance: no defects in the type, so the edges had to be spoiled. Now this will not do at all. Look."

He turned the opened the book. A word – Lazunok – which had no business being there was printed on the margin of the page.

"Here it is again," the editor-in-chief said, turning over the pages.

The technical editor finally agreed that though it was trivial, it was a defect all the same.

The bearer of that name was the only person who would have never agreed to considering it a defect and unnecessary in the book. There could be no question about it being necessary! Mihas was on tenterhooks until Quagmire, the first book he had helped to create, appeared in the book-stall.

The day finally came when he had the book in his hands.

Ivan Simonovich had told him the truth. Mihas saw his name printed several times on the margins of the book. There it was: Lazunok, Lazunok, Lazunok. . . . It was a pity, though, that here and there the knife had gone through the name, cutting half of it away. But that was not worth bothering about, for in some books the defects were far worse.

Mihas stood near the book-stall for a long time, smiling and endlessly turning over the pages of the book.