“Ah, you! You are terribly good! What will come of it? You’ll run away, and in your place some one else will have to go to jail. And that one will be me. No, I’m simply making conversation.” “You are a blessed fool--otherwise you seem a good sort of fellow,” said Efimushka’s companion, uttering a sigh. Efimushka quite agreed with him. “It is true I am called blessed by some people; and that I’m a good fellow is also true. I am a simple man--that’s at the bottom of it. Other people say things with cunning, in an underhand sort of way, but why should I? I am alone in the world. Deal wrongly--and you die; deal rightly--you die also. And so I’ve kept straight, mostly.” “That is the right way,” remarked the prisoner indifferently. “How else should it be? Why should I let my soul go wrong when I am alone here? I am a free man, brother. As I wish, so I live. I have my own idea of life, and live according to it. So it goes. By the way, how are you called?” “How? Well, you may call me Ivan Ivanov.” “So! Are you of the priesthood?” “N-no.” “Well! And I thought you were----” “Because of my dress?” “Well, you look like a runaway monk or an unfrocked priest.... But your face is not at all suited; it looks more like a soldier’s. God knows what kind of man you are!” Efimushka cast a curious glance at the stranger. The other sighed, readjusted his hat, wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and asked the deputy: “Do you smoke?” “Happy to afford you the pleasure. To be sure, I do!” He drew out of his bosom a soiled pouch and, lowering his head, without decreasing his gait, began to fill a clay pipe with tobacco. “Well, have your smoke.” The prisoner paused, inclined his head to receive a light from a match held by the convoy, and drew in his cheeks. A thin blue smoke rose in the air. “You haven’t told me as yet to what class you belong.” “The gentry,” replied the prisoner curtly, and spat out sideways. “So that’s it! How come you, then, to be strolling about without a passport?” “I simply choose to.” “So--so! What an occupation! You gentry do not usually take to this wolfish life. Ah, but you are a poor wretch!” “Well, let it go at that ... and stop your chattering,” remarked the poor wretch dryly. Efimushka, however, surveyed the passportless man with increased curiosity and interest, and, shaking his head in a perplexed manner, continued: “Eh, but how fate does play with a man, when you come to think of it! And it is very likely true that you are of the gentry, because you have a grand manner about you. Have you lived long like this?” The man with the grand manner looked gloomily at Efimushka, and waved him aside like some pestering wasp. “Drop it, I tell you! Why do you stick at it like a woman?” “Now, don’t be vexed,” said Efimushka reassuringly. “I speak from the heart ... and I am really kind-hearted....” “Well, that’s lucky for you.... On the other hand, your tongue keeps on babbling without a stop--that’s unlucky for me!”