“Pooh! Money!” said Rimsky, when the third bottle was brought. “I have enough money to buy all the vodka in the city.” “That’s the vodka talking,” sneered Ilya. “I feel as if I could buy a farm, but it would be another matter for me to find the money. That is the way with you.” “Don’t go on so with big talk,” warned Rimsky, “or I will begin to talk of the holy medals.” “Talk and the devil take you!” cried Ilya, thumping the bottle down on the table angrily. “If you do I’ll go my way and wish a curse on you!” “Sit still!” commanded Rimsky. “I’ve money enough, I tell you. If not, I can go and borrow from my rich friends.” Ilya laughed so loudly at this that he disturbed the drunken Buriat, who lifted his black head from the table and glared about the room. He looked like a mandarin, with his long thin drooping mustaches. “But I tell you I have rich friends,” insisted Rimsky. “I could go now and get a hundred rubles if I needed them—yes, twenty and a hundred and no interest. Kirsakoff would let me have them, and no questions asked, and nothing about when they should be paid back.” “What!” exclaimed Ilya, staring at Rimsky. “You say the old Governor would lend you twenty and a hundred rubles! _Tfu!_ That’s crazy talk!” “Yes! You think I don’t know the old Governor, eh! Well, Kirsakoff is a friend of mine, you had better know that.” “Pooh!” snorted Ilya. “You are an old mud-head! You don’t even know where the old Governor lives in the city, and you sit there telling to me that he is your friend! Oh, ho, ho!” “Perhaps you think you are the only one who knows where Kirsakoff lives? You are a fool who thinks he is wise, and that’s the worst fool of all.” Ilya was cautious at once. He gave Rimsky a careful look, but Rimsky paid no attention to the look. “Who told you I said I knew where Kirsakoff lived?” demanded Ilya. “You said it yourself. I heard you say it last Butter Week in the bazaar. You were drunk and you went boasting about to the old man from Pischenko with the red boots. I heard you say it, Ilya Andreitch.” Ilya ruffled his brow and tried to remember when he had been talking to a man with red boots from Pischenko. He knew no one in that town who had red boots—unless it was the butcher’s assistant who married the cake-maker. “True,” said Ilya. “I might have known then where Kirsakoff lived. I don’t deny it. Perhaps I was drunk Butter Week. It wasn’t my fault if I was sober. But that was a long time ago as time runs now—and I don’t know where Kirsakoff lives now. And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.” Rimsky laughed good-naturedly. “Let us have another drink. You are a good fellow. Of course you do not know where Michael Alexandrovitch lives. If you did, you could have money, as I have. It is worth money to know where the old Governor lives.” Ilya saw that Rimsky was getting very drunk and seeking an argument. “If you knew where Kirsakoff lived, who would pay?” asked Ilya, becoming greedy at the mention of money.