w a great deal about it,..." the head guard says, offended.
"Five roubles, indeed! Here, we will ask the merchant. Mr. Malahin," he
says, addressing the old man, "what do you say: is this imitation beaver
or real?"

Old Malahin takes the cap into his hand, and with the air of a
connoisseur pinches the fur, blows on it, sniffs at it, and a
contemptuous smile lights up his angry face.

"It must be imitation!" he says gleefully. "Imitation it is."

A dispute follows. The guard maintains that the cap is real beaver, and
the engine-driver and Malahin try to persuade him that it is not. In the
middle of the argument the old man suddenly remembers the object of his
coming.

"Beaver and cap is all very well, but the train's standing still,
gentlemen!" he says. "Who is it we are waiting for? Let us start!"

"Let us," the guard agrees. "We will smoke another cigarette and go on.
But there is no need to be in a hurry.... We shall be delayed at the
next station anyway!"

"Why should we?"

"Oh, well.... We are too much behind time.... If you are late at
one station you can't help being delayed at the other stations to let
the trains going the opposite way pass. Whether we set off now or in
the morning we shan't be number fourteen. We shall have to be number
twenty-three."

"And how do you make that out?"

"Well, there it is."

Malahin looks at the guard, reflects, and mutters mechanically as though
to himself:

"God be my judge, I have reckoned it and even jotted it down in a
notebook; we have wasted thirty-four hours standing still on the
journey. If you go on like this, either the cattle will die, or they
won't pay me two roubles for the meat when I do get there. It's not
traveling, but ruination."

The guard raises his eyebrows and sighs with an air that seems to say:
"All that is unhappily true!" The engine-driver sits silent, dreamily
looking at the cap. From their faces one can see that they have a secret
thought in common, which they do not utter, not because they want to
conceal it, but because such thoughts are much better expressed by signs
than by words. And the old man understands. He feels in his pocket,
takes out a ten-rouble note, and without preliminary words, without any
change in the tone of his voice or the expression of his face, but with
the confidence and directness with which probably only Russians give and
take bribes, he gives the guard the note. The latter takes it, folds it
in four, and wi