“No, I am a cadet. But where did you kill those pheasants?” asked Olénin. “I dispatched these three hens in the forest,” answered the old man, turning his broad back towards the window to show the hen pheasants which were hanging with their heads tucked into his belt and staining his coat with blood. “Haven’t you seen any?” he asked. “Take a brace if you like! Here you are,” and he handed two of the pheasants in at the window. “Are you a sportsman yourself?” he asked. “I am. During the campaign I killed four myself.” “Four? What a lot!” said the old man sarcastically. “And are you a drinker? Do you drink _chikhir?_” “Why not? I like a drink.” “Ah, I see you are a trump! We shall be _kunaks_, you and I,” said Daddy Eróshka. “Step in,” said Olénin. “We’ll have a drop of _chikhir_.” “I might as well,” said the old man, “but take the pheasants.” The old man’s face showed that he liked the cadet. He had seen at once that he could get free drinks from him, and that therefore it would be all right to give him a brace of pheasants. Soon Daddy Eróshka’s figure appeared in the doorway of the hut, and it was only then that Olénin became fully conscious of the enormous size and sturdy build of this man, whose red-brown face with its perfectly white broad beard was all furrowed by deep lines produced by age and toil. For an old man, the muscles of his legs, arms, and shoulders were quite exceptionally large and prominent. There were deep scars on his head under the short-cropped hair. His thick sinewy neck was covered with deep intersecting folds like a bull’s. His horny hands were bruised and scratched. He stepped lightly and easily over the threshold, unslung his gun and placed it in a corner, and casting a rapid glance round the room noted the value of the goods and chattels deposited in the hut, and with out-turned toes stepped softly, in his sandals of raw hide, into the middle of the room. He brought with him a penetrating but not unpleasant smell of _chikhir_ wine, vodka, gunpowder, and congealed blood. Daddy Eróshka bowed down before the icons, smoothed his beard, and approaching Olénin held out his thick brown hand. “_Koshkildy_,” said he; “That is Tartar for ‘Good-day’—‘Peace be unto you,’ it means in their tongue.” “_Koshkildy_, I know,” answered Olénin, shaking hands. “Eh, but you don’t, you won’t know the right order! Fool!” said Daddy Eróshka, shaking his head reproachfully. “If anyone says ‘_Koshkildy_’ to you, you must say ‘_Allah rasi bo sun_,’ that is, ‘God save you.’ That’s the way, my dear fellow, and not ‘_Koshkildy_.’ But I’ll teach you all about it. We had a fellow here, Elias Mósevich, one of your Russians, he and I were _kunaks_. He was a trump, a drunkard, a thief, a sportsman—and what a sportsman! I taught him everything.” “And what will you teach me?” asked Olénin, who was becoming more and more interested in the old man.