[53] Martin then went home, and his mother asked him, "What hast thou bought?"--"Why look, I have bought Jurka!" replied her son. His mother fell a-scolding him, and reproached him bitterly: "Art thou not ashamed? Soon we shall not have a morsel to eat, and thou hast gone and thrown away so much money on a pagan dog." The next day the old woman sent her son into the town again, and said to him, "Now there is our last one hundred rubles, buy with it provision of bread. To-day I will collect together the scrapings of the meal-tub and bake us fritters, but to-morrow there will not even be that!" Little Martin got to town and walked along the streets and looked about him, and he saw a boy who had fastened a cord round a cat's neck and was dragging it off to drown it. "Stop!" shrieked Martin, "whither art thou dragging Vaska?" [54]--"I am dragging him off to be drowned!"--"Why, what has he done?"--"He is a great rascal. He has stolen a whole goose."--"Don't drown him, far better sell him to me!"--"I'll take nothing less than one hundred rubles!"--"Well, one hundred rubles is only one hundred rubles after all; here! take the money!" And he took Vaska from the boy. "What hast thou bought, my son?" asked his mother when he got home.--"Why the cat Vaska!"--"And what besides?"--"Well, perhaps there's some money still left, and then we can buy something else."--"Oh, oh, oh! what a fool thou art!" screeched the old woman. "Go out of the house this instant and beg thy bread from the stranger!"