This violent preliminary takes him aback; his little huckster brain fails him. It has never even occurred to him that I have cheated him of five shillings. "Don't you know, then, that I have swindled you?" I query impatiently, and I breathe quickly with the excitement; I tremble and am ready to use force if he doesn't come to the point. But the poor man has no misgivings. Well, bless my soul, what stupid creatures one has to mix with in this world! I abuse him, explain to him every detail as to how it had all happened, show him where the fact was accomplished, where the money had lain; how I had gathered it up in my hand and closed my fingers over it--and he takes it all in and does nothing. He shifts uneasily from one foot to the other, listens for footsteps in the next room, make signs to hush me, to try and make me speak lower, and says at last: "It was a mean enough thing of you to do!" "No; hold on," I explained in my desire to contradict him--to aggravate him. It wasn't quite so mean as he imagined it to be, in his huckster head. Naturally, I didn't keep the money; that could never have entered my head. I, for my part, scorned to derive any benefit from it--that was opposed to my thoroughly honest nature. "What did you do with it, then?" "I gave it away to a poor old woman--every farthing of it." He must understand that that was the sort of person I was; I didn't forget the poor so.... He stands and thinks over this a while, becomes manifestly very dubious as to how far I am an honest man or not. At last he says: "Oughtn't you rather to have brought it back again?" "Now, listen here," I reply; "I didn't want to get you into trouble in any way; but that is the thanks one gets for being generous. Here I stand and explain the whole thing to you, and you simply, instead of being ashamed as a dog, make no effort to settle the dispute with me. Therefore I wash my hands of you, and as for the rest, I say, 'The devil take you!' Good-day." I left, slamming the door behind me. But when I got home to my room, into the melancholy hole, wet through from the soft snow, trembling in my knees from the day's wanderings, I dismounted instantly from my high horse, and sank together once more. I regretted my attack upon the poor shop-boy, wept, clutched myself by the throat to punish myself for my miserable trick, and behaved like a lunatic. He had naturally been in the most deadly terror for the sake of his situation; he had not dared to make any fuss about the five shillings that were lost to the business, and I had taken advantage of his fear, had tortured him with my violent address, stabbed him with every loud word that I had roared out. And the master himself had perhaps been sitting inside the inner room, almost within an ace of feeling called upon to come out and inquire what was the row. No, there was no longer any limit to the low things I might be tempted to do.