“I’ll take you hunting and teach you to fish. I’ll show you Chéchens and find a girl for you, if you like—even that! That’s the sort I am! I’m a wag!”—and the old man laughed. “I’ll sit down. I’m tired. _Karga?_” he added inquiringly. “And what does ‘_Karga_’ mean?” asked Olénin. “Why, that means ‘All right’ in Georgian. But I say it just so. It is a way I have, it’s my favourite word. _Karga_, _Karga_. I say it just so; in fun I mean. Well, lad, won’t you order the _chikhir?_ You’ve got an orderly, haven’t you?” “Yes.” “Hey, Iván!” shouted the old man. “All your soldiers are Iváns. Is yours Iván?” “True enough, his name is Iván—Vanyúsha. Here Vanyúsha! Please get some _chikhir_ from our landlady and bring it here.” “Iván or Vanyúsha, that’s all one. Why are all your soldiers Iváns? Iván, old fellow,” said the old man, “you tell them to give you some from the barrel they have begun. They have the best _chikhir_ in the village. But don’t give more than thirty kopeks for the quart, mind, because that witch would be only too glad.... Our people are anathema people; stupid people,” Daddy Eróshka continued in a confidential tone after Vanyúsha had gone out. “They do not look upon you as on men, you are worse than a Tartar in their eyes. ‘Worldly Russians’ they say. But as for me, though you are a soldier you are still a man, and have a soul in you. Isn’t that right? Elias Mósevich was a soldier, yet what a treasure of a man he was! Isn’t that so, my dear fellow? That’s why our people don’t like me; but I don’t care! I’m a merry fellow, and I like everybody. I’m Eróshka; yes, my dear fellow.” And the old Cossack patted the young man affectionately on the shoulder. Chapter XII Vanyúsha, who meanwhile had finished his housekeeping arrangements and had even been shaved by the company’s barber and had pulled his trousers out of his high boots as a sign that the company was stationed in comfortable quarters, was in excellent spirits. He looked attentively but not benevolently at Eróshka, as at a wild beast he had never seen before, shook his head at the floor which the old man had dirtied and, having taken two bottles from under a bench, went to the landlady. “Good evening, kind people,” he said, having made up his mind to be very gentle. “My master has sent me to get some _chikhir_. Will you draw some for me, good folk?” The old woman gave no answer. The girl, who was arranging the kerchief on her head before a little Tartar mirror, looked round at Vanyúsha in silence. “I’ll pay money for it, honoured people,” said Vanyúsha, jingling the coppers in his pocket. “Be kind to us and we, too will be kind to you,” he added. “How much?” asked the old woman abruptly. “A quart.” “Go, my own, draw some for them,” said Granny Ulítka to her daughter. “Take it from the cask that’s begun, my precious.” The girl took the keys and a decanter and went out of the hut with Vanyúsha.