"But promise you'll never say a word." "I promise." "Say--may I be damned in Hell, if I do." Ilya repeated the formula, whereupon Jakov led him to the old lime-tree in the furthest corner of the courtyard. There he lifted from the stem a strip of bark, cunningly fastened, and behind it Ilya saw a big hollow in the tree. It was a space cleverly scooped out with a knife, and adorned with gay rags, scraps of paper, and bits of tin foil. In the depth of the hollow stood a small figure, cast in bronze, and a wax candle end was fixed upright before it. "Did you see it?" asked Jakov, putting the bark again over the opening. "Yes, I saw. What is it?" "It's a chapel," explained Jakov. "At night I can always come out very quietly and light the candle and pray. Isn't it beautiful?" Ilya liked his friend's idea, but at once perceived the danger. "Suppose any one saw the light. You'd get a fine thrashing!" "Who's going to see it in the night? They're all asleep, the world is all quiet. I'm very little and God can't hear my prayer at the end of the day, but He'll hear it at night when it's quiet, don't you think?" "I don't know, perhaps He will," said Ilya thoughtfully, looking into the pale, big-eyed face of his comrade. "And you? Will you come and pray too?" "What will you pray for?" asked Ilya. "I should ask God to make me very clever, and after that, to give me everything I want. What will you ask for?" "I? I should ask for that too," answered Jakov. After a moment he added: "I should just pray without asking for anything special, just pray, that's all, and He can give what He likes, but if you think the other way's better, then I'll do the same as you." "All right," said Ilya. They decided to start praying the next night at the lime-tree, and both went to bed firmly determined to wake and meet at the corner. But neither then nor on the following night could they wake, and they overslept on many other occasions; then new impressions came to bear on Ilya and the thought of the chapel fell into the background. In the twigs of this same lime-tree where Jakov had established his chapel, Pashka set bird snares, to catch finches and siskins. He had grown clumsy and thin, and his eyes looked this way and that like the eyes of a beast of prey. He had now no time to loaf about the court. He was kept busy with Perfishka all day, and the friends only saw him on holidays, when the cobbler was drunk. Pashka used to ask them what they were learning at school, and would look gloomy and envious when they gave accounts coloured with a consciousness of their superiority. "You needn't be so stuck up, anyhow," he said once. "I'll learn something, too, some day." "But Perfishka won't let you." "Then I'll run away," answered Pashka, shortly and decidedly. And as a matter of fact soon after this speech the cobbler went round the courtyard saying with a laugh: "My young companion has run away, the young devil! Couldn't get on with my leather science!"