He was a tall old man with a long beard, like Blessed Vassili, with intelligent eyes in a pleasant face. The tendon of one of his legs had been removed, and he walked lame, with a long stick. Summer and winter he wore a light garment, like a cassock, and a velvet cap of a strange shape, which looked like a saucepan. Usually brisk and upright, when he entered the shop, he let his shoulders droop, and bent his back, sighing gently and crossing himself often, muttering prayers and psalms to himself all the time. This pious and aged feebleness at once inspired the vendor with confidence in the valuer. "What is the matter? Has something gone wrong?" the old man would ask. "Here is a man who has brought an icon to sell. He says it is a Stroganovski." "What!" "A Stroganovski." "Aha, my hearing is bad. The Lord has stopped my ears against the abomination of the Nikonites." Taking off his cap, he held the icon horizontally, looked at the inscription lengthways, sideways, straight up, examined the knots in the wood, blinked, and murmured: "The godless Nikonites, observing our love of ancient beauties, and instructed by the devil, have maliciously made forgeries. In these days it is very easy to make holy images,--oh, very easy! At first sight, this might be a real Stroganovski, or an Ustiujcki painting, or even a Suzdulski, but when you look into it, it is a forgery." If he said "forgery," it meant, "This icon is precious and rare." By a series of pre-arranged signs, he informed the shopman how much he was to give for the icon or book. I knew that the words "melancholy" and "affliction" meant ten rubles. "Nikon the tiger" meant twenty-five. I felt ashamed to see how they deceived the sellers, but the skilful by-play of the valuer amused me. "Those Nikonites, black children of Nikon the tiger, will do anything,--led by the Devil as they are! Look! Even this signature looks real, and the bas-relief as if it were painted by the one hand. But look at the face--that was not done by the same brush. An old master like Pimen Ushakov, although he was a heretic, did the whole icon himself. He did the bas-relief, the face, and even the chasing very carefully, and sketched in the inscription, but the impious people of our day cannot do anything like it! In old times image painting was a holy calling, but now they make what concerns God merely a matter of art." At length he laid the icon down carefully on the counter, and putting on his hat, said: "It is a sin!" This meant "buy it." Overwhelmed by his flow of sweet words, astounded by the old man's knowledge, the client would ask in an impressed tone: "Well, your honor, what is your opinion of the icon?" "The icon was made by Nikonite hands." "That cannot be! My grandfather and my grandmother prayed before it!" "Nikon lived before your grandfather lived." The old man held the icon close to the face of the seller, and said sternly: