With heavy head and light pockets he had reached home in the small hours, and, dressed as he was, had thrown himself on his bed, feeling as if each individual hair in his head were being torn out by a devil with red-hot pincers. Suddenly he was aroused from his uneasy slumbers by a hideous noise of scuffling and quarrelling in the street. A man beneath his windows, seemingly set upon by ruffians, was screaming loudly for help, and no one going to his aid. Why should they--when the police did not trouble themselves about private disturbances? Pushkin could stand it no longer; going to his window, he breathed upon the frozen pane to clear a space, and looked out. Two men were belaboring a third, who was vainly endeavoring to defend himself, his face covered with blood. One of his assailants gave a tug at the long beard, worn divided in the middle, plucking out a handful. That was too much for Pushkin; the sight of such brutality made his blood boil. Snatching his dog-whip from the wall, he tore down into the street. In vain his man cried after him, "Don't open the door, sir;" he was out like a shot, and, plunging into the middle of the trio, began laying his whip upon the two offenders right merrily, upon which they quickly took to their heels; and Pushkin, raising in his arms the injured, groaning victim of their brutality, carried him into his house. Reaching his room, he sent for cold water and a basin, that the poor fellow might bathe his face. This he proceeded to do so effectually that not only the vermilion dye stained the water deep red, but also the beard, which was only stuck on, entirely disappeared from his face. Drying his face, he turned with a smile to Pushkin, drew out a folded paper from the sleeve of his caftan, and said: "Very glad to have the opportunity of speaking to you again. Will you not pay me this little account?" And now, for the first time, did Pushkin perceive that it was his worst creditor, the usurer Zsabakoff, who stood before him. "Was it the devil brought you here?" "No, sir, you brought me yourself." His servant interposed-- "Didn't I tell you, sir, not to open the door?" "But they were pulling out his beard." "It was only stuck on," confessed Zsabakoff, with a grin. "And the two men who were laying their sticks about you?" "Are my two brothers-in-law. That was all a pre-arranged thing. I knew that you were too much a gentleman to see a man ill-treated before your very door. There seemed no other way of getting at you." Pushkin saw that he had been thoroughly sold, and that it was best to put a good face on it. "Well, and what's your business?" "Only humbly to ask you, sir, to pay this miserable one thousand rubles. You know how long they have been owing." "Yes, I have already paid them twice over in interest."