“Half a litre, and a herring, and.... Yes, I will.—You see, had I but a gun,” he continued, his brain now a little clearer; but then he fell to counting again. “A sheepskin, now, will come to five roubles ... and boots, too, I need ... three roubles. No, I can’t manage it: the smith wants five for a gun—as much from me as from Rafal.—No!” He was thinking out loud. Yankel make a swift calculation with a bit of chalk, and then whispered low in his ear: “Could you shoot a doe?” “With my fists—how? With a gun I could.” “Can you shoot then—properly?” “You’re a Jew, Yankel, so you don’t know this: but everybody here knows I went along with the masters in the last insurrection; that’s how I got shot in the leg. Oh, yes, yes, I can shoot!” “I’ll get you a gun and powder, and whatever you may want. Only, what you shoot you are to bring to me, Kuba! For a doe, you shall have a whole rouble. You hear me? a whole rouble! For the powder, you will pay fifteen kopeks, that I shall deduct for every doe shot. Then, for the wear and tear of the gun, I shall want half a bushel of oats.” “A rouble for a doe? and fifteen kopeks for the powder?... A whole rouble? How do you make that out?” Yankel again went over every particular. Kuba only understood one point. “Take oats out of the horses’ mouths?” he said. “That I’m not going to do.” “Why should you? Boryna has oats ... not only in the mangers.” “But—but that would be like....” He stared at Yankel, and tried to make things out. “They all do that! Did you never wonder where the farm-hands got all their money from? How else are they to have their tobacco, and their nip of vodka, and their dance of Sundays?” “How? what? you scurvy fellow! Am I a thief, say?” he suddenly thundered out, striking on the table with his fist, so that the glasses rang. “Ah! Kuba, you’ll fly out at me, will you? Then pay your score and go to the devil!” But he neither paid nor left. He was penniless, and in debt to the Jews besides. So he only drooped heavily over the bar, in an attempt to make out the reckoning. And Yankel, growing kind, poured him out some more rum—pure this time—and said not a word.