Still it would not be a bad thing to have a bite now. I drink like a fish and I hardly ever have a square meal. Doctors say drinking does you good only when followed by a hearty meal, as the Most Reverend Smaragd said when we passed through Oboyan. Was it Oboyan? The deuce knows, it may have been Kromy. But that's immaterial now. The main question is, how to get something to eat. I recollect that my man put a sausage and three rolls into the bag. Caviar is too expensive for the rascal. Look at the fellow--sleeps like a log and sings through his nose. I wouldn't be surprised if he were sitting on the bag." He rummaged about in search of the bag, but could not find it. "Ivan Mikhailych, Ivan Mikhailych," he shouted to the sleeping innkeeper. The man woke up and for a while could not make out where he was and how he happened to be sitting opposite his master. "I was just beginning to nap," he said finally. "Sleep, friend, sleep. I only want to know where the bag with the food is." "Are you hungry? But you would like a drink first, I suppose." "Right. Where is the bottle?" Stepan Vladimirych took a drink, and then attacked the sausage, which happened to be as salty as salt itself and as hard as stone, so that he had to use the point of his knife to pierce it. "Some whitefish would taste good now," he remarked. "Excuse me, sir, I clean forgot about the whitefish. All morning I kept saying to my wife: 'Be sure to remind me of the whitefish.' I am very sorry." "Oh, it doesn't matter. The sausage is good enough for me. When we were on the campaign, we ate worse things. Father used to tell that two Englishmen made a bet. One of them was to eat a dead cat, and he ate it." "You don't say!" "He did. And he was as sick as a dog afterwards. He cured himself with rum. He guzzled two bottles as fast as he could, and that set him right at once. Another Englishman made a bet that he would live a whole year on nothing but sugar." "Did he win?" "No. He kicked the bucket two days before the end of the year. And how about you, why don't you take a drink?" "I never touch it." "So you swill nothing but tea. No good, brother. That's why your belly has grown so big. One must be careful with tea. A cup of tea must be followed by a glass of vodka. Tea gathers phlegm, vodka breaks it up. Isn't that so?" "Well, I don't know. You are learned; you know better." "True. On the campaign we had no time to bother with tea or coffee. But vodka--that's a holy affair. You unscrew the flask, pour the vodka into a cup, drink, and that's all. At that time we had to march so fast that for ten days I went without washing." "You certainly roughed it, sir." "Yes, marching on the highroad is not a joke. Still, on our way forward it was not so bad. People gave us money, and there was plenty to eat and drink. But when we marched back there was no more fêting." Golovliov gnawed at the sausage and finally chewed up a piece.