“Exactly at five o’clock,” answered the Czar in a loud voice. “Sixty grenadiers, with loaded guns and cutlasses! Adieu! Jaen,” continued the Czar, giving a sudden turn to his thoughts, “I will buy your loom, but I will not give more than fifty roubles for it.” “Sixty, sixty.” “You Satan of a Dutchman! You skinflint! If I offer fifty, that is an honour for you! Indeed it is!” The Czar’s anger rose, but it was connected with the adjutant’s message, not with the loom. The pot was boiling, and the cover had to fly. “You miserable peddlers of groceries! Always fleecing people! But your time is past! Now come the English! They are another sort!” Jaen the seaman became gloomy, and that annoyed the Czar still more. He wanted to enjoy Jaen’s company, and therefore sought to divert his thoughts. “Landlord,” he cried, “bring champagne!” The landlord came in, fell on his knees, and begged for mercy, for he had not the luxurious drink in his store-cellar. This superfluous word “store-cellar” might sound ironical and provocative, though unintentionally. Still it was welcome as an occasion for using the stick. “Have you a store-cellar, you rascal? Will you tell me that the keeper of a seaman’s alehouse has a cellar of spirits!” And now the stick danced. But as the Dutchman turned away with a gesture of disapproval, the Czar’s fury broke loose. From time to time his disposition necessitated such outbreaks. His sabre flew out of its sheath; like a madman, he broke all the bottles on the dresser and cut all the legs off the chairs and tables. Then he made a pile out of the fragments, and prepared to burn the landlord on it. Then a door opened, and a woman entered with a little child on her arm. When the child saw its father prostrate with his neck stretched out, it began to scream. The Czar paused, quieted down, went to the woman, and accosted her. “Be easy, mother; no mischief is going on; we are only playing at sailors.” Then he turned to the landlord: “Send the account to Prince Menshikoff; he will pay. But if you scratch me.... Well, I forgive you this time.... Now let us go, Jaen. Up with the anchor, and stand by the sheet!” Then they drove into the town. The Czar ran up into various houses and came down again, until it was noon. They then halted before Menshikoff’s palace. “Is dinner ready?” asked the Czar from the cabriolet. “Yes, your Majesty,” answered a lackey. “Serve up for two! Is the Prince at home?” “No, your Majesty.” “Never mind. Serve up for two.” It was the Czar’s habit thus to make himself a guest in his friends’ houses, whether they were at home or not, and he is said once to have thus quartered himself upon somebody, with two hundred of his courtiers. After a splendid dinner, the Czar went into an ante-room and laid down to sleep. The captain had already gone to sleep at the table. But the Czar laid a watch beside him; he could wake whenever he wished.