“Did you come here for a _ruganie_?” demanded the old man, meaning a mutual slandering of each other in Russian in which both parties to the argument call names of an import so evil as to chill the marrows of respectable listeners. “And you! You look like a gentleman. From what place have you come?” “From the place I go back to. Have you been in Chita long, little grandfather?” “I?” asked the old man, stroking his whiskers. “Yes. What does it matter? I shall be here all time. See the hills outside? My bones shall build them higher,” and he broke out into a cackling laugh as if the joke were one that he used often and still liked its flavor. “You were here in the old days?” pressed Peter. The old one gave Peter a keen look, and sat down on the end of the bench, hiding the precious ten-ruble notes away somewhere under his arms. “I? Why not?” “You were here when the prison was full of unfortunates?” “I was here when it was emptied, too,” and he laughed again and bent to poke the fire with an old cane. But he was getting cautious again, as if he suspected that there might be more behind the twenty rubles than he had bargained for. “What happened when the prison was emptied? It must have been a joyful time.” Graybeard made a noise in his throat which might have been a chuckle, and turning from the fire stood up and straightened his back, to gaze frankly at Peter as if to ask why so many questions were being asked. It was plain that he disapproved of giving gossip extra with what he sold. “You should have been here if you wanted to know,” he said. “I suppose they killed the soldiers,” went on Peter. “No, the unfortunates did not kill the soldiers—except, perhaps, the bad soldiers who had been cruel. Were not the soldiers made free also by revolution? As well as the unfortunates?” “True,” assented Peter. “But the officers? Many of the officers were killed, eh?” “The square down there by the station,” and graybeard threw out his arm and his eyes took on a reminiscent look, “the square is full of dead folks—old and young, officers and all, rich and poor, high and low, witches and holy men. But the unfortunates did not harm me. I am Rimsky and the friend of all, though many were drunk and did not know who were friends. But I got into a potato-cellar till the worst was over, though I was stiff in the legs a good month after. But I was out in time to see them all go off to Petersburg to kill the Little Father, the fools!” “Would you have the Czar back? Is that what you mean?” asked Peter. “I? Why do you ask me that? Is it not enough to know that in the old days there was peace—and that I would have peace in which to die. Should not a man have peace in which to meet the dead? That is all I ask you.” “But are not the new times better than the old?” asked Peter. “Would you have the old times back—and the prison on the hill full of people?”