Here there comes limping across the square a moustachioed Cossack. In one hand he is holding a bunch of keys, and in the other hand a battered Cossack cap, peak in front. Behind him, sobbing and applying his knuckles to his eyes, there is creeping a curly-headed urchin of eight, while the rear is brought up by a shaggy dog whose dejected countenance and lowered tail would seem to show that he too is in disgrace. Each time that the boy whimpers more loudly than usual the Cossack halts, awaits the lad's coming in silence, cuffs him over the head with the peak of the cap, and, resuming his way with the gait of a drunken man, leaves the boy and the dog standing where they are--the boy lamenting, and the dog wagging its tail as its old black muzzle sniffs the air. Somehow I discern in the dog's mien of holding itself prepared for anything that may turn up, a certain resemblance to Konev's bearing, save that the dog is older in appearance than is the vagabond. "You mentioned my wife, I think?" presently he resumes with a sigh. "Yes, I know, but not EVERY malady proves mortal, and I have been married nineteen years!" The rest is well-known to me, for all too frequently have I heard it and similar tales. Unfortunately, I cannot now take the trouble to stop him; so once more I am forced to let his complaints come oozing tediously into my ears. "The wench was plump," says Konev, "and panting for love; so we just got married, and brats began to come tumbling from her like bugs from a bunk." Subsiding a little, the breeze takes, as it were, to whispering. "In fact, I could scarcely turn round for them. Even now seven of them are alive, though originally the stud numbered thirteen. And what was the use of such a gang? For, consider: my wife is forty-two, and I am forty-three. She is elderly, and I am what you behold. True, hitherto I have contrived to keep up my spirits; yet poverty is wearing me down, and when, last winter, my old woman went to pieces I set forth (for what else could I do?) to tour the towns. In fact, folk like you and myself have only one job available--the job of licking one's chops, and keeping one's eyes open. Yet, to tell you the truth, I no sooner perceive myself to be growing superfluous in a place than I spit upon that place, and clear out of it." Never to this sturdy, inveterate rascal does it seem to occur to insinuate that he has been doing work of any kind, or that he in the least cares to do any; while at the same time all self-pity is eschewed in his narrative, and he relates his experiences much as though they are the experiences of another man, and not of himself. Presently, as the Cossack and the boy draw level with us, the former, fingering his moustache, inquires thickly: "Whence are you come?" "From Russia." "All such folk come from there."