“Now when am I to talk with Michael Alexandrovitch, eh?” he demanded, crossing his legs importantly and rubbing one knee with his paw of a hand. “Don’t forget why I have come, Wassili, and that my business is with the master.” “You will see Excellence when you see him,” said Wassili. “True!” said Ilya. “But I shall not leave that to you, if I have to hammer him up myself. This is a matter of government.” “There is no one in the house but the old woman and myself,” said Wassili, with a flourish of his arm. “Excellence is gone, and your whiskers will be longer before you see him.” “May the devil tear out your tongue, for it does not speak the truth,” said Ilya without anger. “This is not a time for lying, when your master is waiting for news from me.” Wassili flourished his arm as an expression of his annoyance, and blurted out surlily, “Then go above for yourself and see, if you know better than I.” The old woman shuffled into the room, and put the glass and a plate of cakes before Ilya, giving him a suspicious eye, and glancing disapprovingly at Wassili for permitting what she regarded as a dangerous intrusion. But she did not linger at the table longer than was necessary to throw down the plate and the tea-glass. Ilya picked up a spice-cake and inspected it carefully by the light of the candle, the maneuver being nothing but a way of delaying his speech till the old woman had disappeared. “I have come with news about an American who is in the city,” he began, and bit into the cake. Wassili turned upon him quickly. “You are a liar!” he exclaimed with ferocity. “There are no Americans in the city here—they are only in Vladivostok, and you are blowing a trumpet in this house while you eat our cakes.” Wassili’s attitude was almost ferocious. “Then you know better than I,” said Ilya, blinking at him across the table and munching the dry cake. “You are drunk, and you dare come here in these times and put a fool’s cap on me—and the master!” “True, I am drunk,” replied Ilya through a mouthful of dry cake. “And I hope I’ll die drunk and go to heaven. But do you think I’m fool enough to run my legs off and come here, risking bullets in my back when I might be sitting by the fire with my bottle? Do you think I come here just to look at your old mud-head? I cared nothing for your master before the revolution, but now that I’m as good as he, why should I not do him a good turn if I can—and he has a few spare rubles to make it worth my time?” Ilya blew crumbs of dry biscuit at Wassili with the words. “Don’t come here and preach at me like a pope!” cautioned Wassili, who was puzzled by Ilya’s newly acquired attitude of independence. Ilya was evidently sure of his ground—or gone mad entirely. “What!” cried Ilya. “You talk to me like that! And I have come to tell the master news! Very good. I know the way home again, and may your bones never know what it means to be buried.”