"Do not make light of it, sir," cried he. "I assure you, it is a matter of life and death with me. If I have to go home like this to those angels who are crying out for bread, I will take a razor and cut their seven throats, then their mother's, and then my own. That I have made up my mind to. You may depend, if you go on laughing at me, I will prepare you a comedy that will turn your laughter into something very different. A desperate man sticks at nothing. When you have it on your conscience that a father of seven hanged himself, before your very eyes, upon your window-frame--" "Try it," said Pushkin, laughing; "but be quick about it, for it's uncommonly late, and I want to go to sleep." And with these words he threw himself upon his camp-bedstead. "Well, then, you shall see, before you have time to sleep." And the money-lender, dragging a chair to the window, got on it, made a noose of his scarf, fastened it to the window-frame, passed his head through it, and kicked away the chair. And suddenly Pushkin saw his creditor struggling in the air, his eyes starting out of his head. So then it was more than a joke! Springing from his bed, he snatched up his dagger to cut the noose; then saw that his would-be suicide was wearing a kind of cravat of stout leather under his shirt, which effectually prevented any possibility of strangulation. Furious at the deception, he threatened the man with a sound thrashing. "Thrash as hard as you like, but pay. I would willingly sacrifice my life to get back my thousand rubles. Don't tell me you have no money. I know you have. Did you not pay back Nyemozsin, that shameless usurer, last week? He's a thorough horse-leech! Takes two hundred per cent. And yet you could pay him, though he held no written acknowledgment of yours." "Just why I did pay him. It was a debt of honor." Zsabakoff, as he heard this, took his I.O.U. and tore it into shreds. "Now I have no written security either--and mine is a debt of honor!" he said, placing both hands in his girdle. This was too much for Pushkin. "Devil take you!" he cried. "Here is my pocket-book. What you find in it you may take." And the money-lender did find something in it--a poem called _The Gypsy Girl_. He began to dance round with glee, now stopping, now starting off afresh, like a merry Cossack. "Ho, ho, what a find! _The Gypsy Girl_! Heaven bless you for it! I am off with it." "Where to?" "To Severin. He was only just telling me how all the world of fashion was besieging his doors to know when Pushkin's poem of _The Gypsy Girl_, that he had read at Fräulein Ilmarinen's, was coming out. He said he would give any amount for it. So my thousand rubles are safe. If I can, I will squeeze something more out of him, and honorably share the surplus with you. I kiss your hand, sir. Pardon any annoyance I may have caused you. Command me when you are in want of more money. I shall be only too happy to be at your service."