It was quite dark when Rimsky reached the courtyard in rear of the building of the bakery. There was a shaft of flickering light dancing out from a partly open door, and the yard was filled with the comforting odor of burning dough. Rimsky planned to ask the bakers first for a man who once hauled wood for them—a peasant dead several months before. That would be excuse enough for coming, and talk could be made till it was time to ask casually for Ilya. That would throw sand in Ilya’s eyes as to why Rimsky appeared at the bakery. The old cigarette-seller prowled in through the door and stumbled over loose wood in the hall till he came to the great room where the bakers were working. A big man, bare to the waist, was drawing huge loaves from the stone stove with a wooden shovel. His damp skin shone in the dancing light. A group of men and women was sitting on benches in the dark side of the room about a samovar. A ball of dough was smoking on an iron sheet laid on the shoulder of the stove. There had been the murmur of voices till Rimsky stood framed in the doorway of the room, looking in. When he appeared there was a sudden hush and silence, except for the grating of the wooden shovel as it drew out the steaming loaves and the cracking of the fire in the fire-pit. “God’s blessing on those who labor for us,” said Rimsky, crossing himself. Some one gave a muttered reply. The man drawing the loaves turned and peered at Rimsky and then went on deftly pulling out the bread, puckering his face against the heat. A man came clumping down the hall and fell over the wood. Rimsky stood aside from the door, and the light from the fire revealed the man with a face shrouded by long and unkempt whiskers, and on his head a sheepskin cap black with dirt. He wore a ragged old coat with a rope turned round his middle several times as a belt. “So this is my old friend, Ilya Andreitch!” exclaimed Rimsky. “It is long since I have seen you. Perhaps you can tell me of the friend I am looking for.” Ilya ogled him suspiciously. “What has gone wrong that you should be here?” he growled. He had a healthy fear of Rimsky and wanted to forget the business of the holy medals. “Can you tell me where I can find Vanusha?” “You are chasing ghosts,” grumbled Ilya, crossing himself at mention of a dead man. “That man is dead. Or is it that you are looking for souls for the devil?” “Dead!” exclaimed Rimsky. “Now that is a pity. I came to get a drinking friend, but now I shall have to go and have a glass of vodka by myself in his memory. He owed me two rubles but he was a good man, I can say that for him.” “Better than I can say for you,” Ilya called out into the dark yard after Rimsky, who had retreated abruptly from the hall. “He never drank his vodka alone, for one thing, like others I know, and they not far off. He was civil to his friends, I can say that—and when you are dead you had better take care that folks say the same of you.”