ave no cause myself to rail against the Lord. I have
lived to the end of my days as any man might be thankful to live.
. . . I have married my daughters to good men, my sons I have set
up in life, and now I am free; I have done my work and can go where
I like. I live in peace with my wife. I eat and drink and sleep and
rejoice in my grandchildren, and say my prayers and want nothing
more. I live on the fat of the land, and don't need to curry favour
with anyone. I have never had any trouble from childhood, and now
suppose the Tsar were to ask me, 'What do you need? What would you
like?' why, I don't need anything. I have everything I want and
everything to be thankful for. In the whole town there is no happier
man than I am. My only trouble is I have so many sins, but there
--only God is without sin. That's right, isn't it?"

"No doubt it is."

"I have no teeth, of course; my poor old back aches; there is one
thing and another, . . . asthma and that sort of thing. . . . I
ache. . . . The flesh is weak, but then think of my age! I am in
the eighties! One can't go on for ever; one mustn't outstay one's
welcome."

Father Christopher suddenly thought of something, spluttered into
his glass and choked with laughter. Moisey Moisevitch laughed, too,
from politeness, and he, too, cleared his throat.

"So funny!" said Father Christopher, and he waved his hand. "My
eldest son Gavrila came to pay me a visit. He is in the medical
line, and is a district doctor in the province of Tchernigov. . . .
'Very well . . .' I said to him, 'here I have asthma and one thing
and another. . . . You are a doctor; cure your father!' He undressed
me on the spot, tapped me, listened, and all sorts of tricks, . . .
kneaded my stomach, and then he said, 'Dad, you ought to be treated
with compressed air.'" Father Christopher laughed convulsively,
till the tears came into his eyes, and got up.

"And I said to him, 'God bless your compressed air!'" he brought
out through his laughter, waving both hands. "God bless your
compressed air!"

Moisey Moisevitch got up, too, and with his hands on his stomach,
went off into shrill laughter like the yap of a lap-dog.

"God bless the compressed air!" repeated Father Christopher, laughing.

Moisey Moisevitch laughed two notes higher and so violently that
he could hardly stand on his feet.

"Oh dear!" he moaned through his laughter. "Let me get my breath
. . . . You'll be the death of me."

He laughed a