He came to a block of stores. A merchant in a fox-skin shuba was standing at the door of his shop, and inviting custom. "If I hadn't taken the eight, I should have won." A little old beggar-woman followed him, snivelling. "I have no one to borrow of." A gentleman in a bear-skin shuba passed him. A policeman was standing on the corner. "What can I do that will make sensation? Fire a pistol at them? No! That would be stupid. I have wasted my youth. _Akh!_ what a splendid harness that is hanging in that shop! I should like to be riding behind a troïka!... _Ekh!_ you fine fellows![61] I am going back. Lukhnof will be there pretty soon, and we'll have a game." [Footnote 61: _golúbchiki_, little pigeons.] He returned to the hotel, and once more counted his money. No, he was not mistaken the first time; twenty-five hundred rubles of public money were missing, just as before. "I will put up twenty-five rubles first; the next time, a quarter stake; then on seven, on fifteen, on thirty, and on sixty ... three thousand. I will buy that harness, and start. He won't give me any odds, the villain! I have wasted my youth!" This was what was passing through the uhlan's mind just as Lukhnof himself came into the room. "Well, have you been up long, Mikháïlo Vasílyitch?" inquired Lukhnof, deliberately removing from his thin nose his gold eye-glasses, and carefully wiping them with a red silk handkerchief. "No, only just this minute. I had a splendid sleep!" "A new hussar has just come. He is staying with Zavalshevsky. Had you heard about it?" "No, I hadn't. Well, no one seems to be here yet. I believe they have gone to call on Priakhin. They'll be here very soon." In fact, in a short time there came into the room an officer of the garrison, who was always hovering round Lukhnof; a Greek merchant with a huge hooked nose, cinnamon complexion, and deep-set black eyes; a stout, puffy proprietor, a brandy-distiller who gambled all night long, and always made his stakes on the basis of half a ruble. All of these wished to begin playing as promptly as possible, but the more daring players said nothing about it; Lukhnof, in particular, with perfect equanimity, told stories of rascality in Moscow. "Just think of it," said he, "Moscow, the metropolis, the capital; and there they go out at night with crooks, dressed like demons; and they scare the stupid people, and rob pedestrians, and that is the end of it. Do the police notice it? No! It is astonishing!" The uhlan listened attentively to the tales of these highwaymen, but finally got up and unobtrusively ordered cards to be brought. The stout proprietor was the first to notice it. "Well, gentlemen, we are wasting golden moments. To work, let us to work!" "Yes, you won by the half-ruble last evening, and so you like it," exclaimed the Greek. "It's a good time to begin," said the garrison officer.