He said all this smiling sceptically, and it seemed to me that he did not believe himself. But he excited in me an eager curiosity, and I resolved to go with him till I discovered who he was. It was plain that he was a so-called "intelligent person." There are many of them among the vagabonds, but they are all--dead people, people who have lost all self-respect, who lack the capacity of esteeming themselves, and only manage to live by falling lower every day into filth and nastiness; finally, they dissolve in it and disappear from life. But there was something substantial and durable about Promtov. And he did not grumble at life as all the others do. "Well, shall we go on?" he proposed. "By all means." We rose from the ground warmed by tea and sunshine, and descended the bank to the current of the stream. "And how do you manage to get food?" I asked Promtov ... "do you work?" "Wo-o-rk? No, I am no great lover of that." "But how then do you manage?" "You shall see." He was silent. Presently, after walking a few steps, he began whistling through his teeth some merry song. His eyes keenly and confidently swept the steppe, and he walked firmly like a man sure of his object. I looked at him, and the desire to know with whom I had to deal burnt still more strongly within me. The steppe surrounded us, desolate and quiet; above us shone the friendly sun of the south; we breathed with all our lungs the pure stimulating air, and went along in the direction where fragments of clouds jostled one another in a chaos of shapes and colours. When we came to the street of the village--a little dog from somewhere or other bounded under our very feet, and barking loudly began to turn round and round us. Every time we looked at her, she bounded to one side, like a ball, with a terrified yelp, and again fell upon us barking furiously. Some of her friends then ran out, but they did not distinguish themselves by equal zeal, for after giving a bark or two they retired to some hiding-place. Their indifference seemed, however, to excite still more our little reddish doggie. "Do you see what a mean nature that dog has?" observed Promtov, shaking his head at the zealous little dog. "And it is all lies too. She knows very well that barking is not necessary here, and she is not spiteful--she is a coward, and only wants to show off before her master. The little devil is purely human, and without doubt she has been educated into it.... People spoil their beasts. The time will soon come when beasts will be as abject and insincere as you and me...." "Thank you," I said. "Don't mention it. However, now I must take aim." His expressive countenance now put on a pitiful mien, his eyes grew foolish, he became all bent and crooked, and his rags stood up straight like the fins of a chub.