Efimushka began to feel bored. Naturally a great talker, he could not keep silent for long, and, clearing his throat, he suddenly burst forth with two bars of a song in a falsetto voice. "My voice can't quite manage the tune, burst it!" he said, "and I could sing once upon a time. The Vishensky teacher used to say: 'Come along, Efimushka,' and then we would sing together--a capital fellow he was too!" "Who was he?" growled the man in the cassock. "The Vishensky teacher...." "Did he belong to the Vishensky family?" "Vishensky is the name of a village, my brother And the teacher's name was Pavel Mikhaluich. A first-rate sort the man was. He died three years ago. "Young?" "Not thirty." "What did he die of?" "Grief, I should say." Efimushka's companion cast a furtive glance at him and smiled. "It was like this, dear man. He taught and taught for seven years at a stretch, and then he began to cough. He coughed and coughed and he grew anxious. Now anxiety you know is often the beginning of vodka-drinking. Now Father Aleyksyei did not love him, and when he began to drink, Father Aleyksyei sent reports to town, and said this and that, the teacher had taken to drink, it was becoming a scandal. And in reply other papers came from the town, and they sent another teacher-fellow too. He was lanky and bony, with a very big nose. Well, Pavel Mikhaluich saw that things were going wrong. He grew worried and ill.... They sent him straight from the schoolroom to the hospital, and in five days he rendered up his soul to God.... That's all...." For a time they went on in silence. The forest drew nearer and nearer to the travellers at every step, growing up before their very eyes and turning from blue to green. "We are going to the forest, eh?" inquired the traveller of Efimushka. "We shall hit the fringe of it, it is about a verst and a half distant now. But, eh? what? You're a nice one, too, my worthy father, I have my eye upon you!" And Efimushka smiled and shook his head. "What ails you?" inquired the prisoner. "Nothing, nothing! Ah, ha! We are going to the forest, eh?" says he. "You are a simpleton, my dear man. Another in your place would not have asked that question, that is, if he had had more sense. Another would have made straight for the forest, and then...." "Well!" "Oh, nothing, nothing. I can see through you, my brother. Your idea is a thin reed in my eyes. No, you had better cast away that idea, I tell you, so far as that forest is concerned. We must come to an understanding, I see, you and I. Why, I would tackle three such as you, and polish you off singly with my left hand.... Do you take me?" "Take you? I take you for a fool!" said the prisoner curtly and expressively. "Ah, ha! I've guessed what you were up to, eh?" said Efimushka, triumphantly. "You scarecrow! What do you think you've guessed?" asked the prisoner with a wry smile.