Whereupon this strange phenomenon, this wizened little old man, saw him off the premises, after which he ordered the gates locked at once, then made the round of the storerooms, to check whether the guards, who stood at every corner, banging with wooden spades on empty barrels instead of iron rails, were all in their places; after that, he peeked into the kitchen, where, on the pretext of testing whether people were being properly fed, he downed a goodly quantity of cabbage soup with groats and, having scolded every last one of them for thievery and bad behavior, returned to his room.