"I? What?" answered Lunev hesitatingly. "Oh! I get along, but you, tell me, that's much more interesting." Lunev felt absolutely disinclined to give information about himself; he hardly wanted to speak at all. He looked at Jakov and seeing him suffering, pitied him, but it was a cold pity, almost an empty, unmeaning feeling. "I, brother? I endure my life as well as I can," answered Jakov, half aloud. "Your father sucks your blood." "Oh, he's in a tight place himself." "Serves him right!" "Step-mother's the chief person in the house now; if she says a thing, that's the law." "Child, what use is money to you? Give me a kiss, I'll give you two," sang Perfishka in a piping voice in the next room, and played on his harmonica. "What kind of a chest is that?" asked Ilya. "That? That's a harmonium. Father bought it for me for four roubles. 'Learn to play it,' he said, 'then I'll buy you a good one at three hundred roubles,' he said, 'and we'll put it in the restaurant, and you can play to the guests and be some use, anyhow.' It was smart of him; they have organs in all the taverns now except ours, and I like playing." "He's a mean wretch!" cried Lunev. "Not at all! Why? Let him alone. It's quite true, I'm no use to him." Ilya looked darkly at his friend, and said bitterly: "Here's a good idea for him! Tell him when you die to make a show of you in the bar, and charge to see it, five kopecks a head. Then you'll be worth something to him." Jakov laughed in an embarrassed way, and began to cough again, holding his hand first against his chest, then against his throat. And Perfishka went on cheerfully: "He kept the fast days as 'tis fit, He did not eat or drink a bit, His empty stomach felt the pain, But oh! his soul was clean again!" "So, ho--holiness!" And his harmonica drowned the words with a confused medley of sounds. "How do you get on with your step-brother?" asked Ilya when Jakov ceased coughing. His friend raised his face, quite blue with the exertion of coughing, and said, struggling to get his breath: "He doesn't live here. His superiors won't let him--because of--the business. He--is bearable--a little uppish--plays the gentleman. Comes often for money to his mother. He's always wanting money." Jakov lowered his voice, and went on in a troubled way: "Do you remember that book? You know? Yes--he took it away from me--it was rare he said--that it was worth a lot--and so he took it away. I begged him--leave it to me--but no!--he would have it." Ilya laughed aloud. Then the two friends began their tea. Through the chinks in the wooden partition all kinds of noises and different odours made their way into the little room. One angry voice, towering above the rest, shouted: "Mitry Nikolayitch--don't you throw my words back at me!"