mly at the end: "... and lay calves upon Thy altar!"

After saying his prayers, Yasha hurriedly crosses himself and says:
"Five kopecks, please."

And on being given the five-kopeck piece, he takes a red copper teapot
and runs to the station for boiling water. Taking long jumps over
the rails and sleepers, leaving huge tracks in the feathery snow,
and pouring away yesterday's tea out of the teapot he runs to the
refreshment room and jingles his five-kopeck piece against his teapot.
From the van the bar-keeper can be seen pushing away the big teapot and
refusing to give half of his samovar for five kopecks, but Yasha
turns the tap himself and, spreading wide his elbows so as not to be
interfered with fills his teapot with boiling water.

"Damned blackguard!" the bar-keeper shouts after him as he runs back to
the railway van.

The scowling face of Malahin grows a little brighter over the tea.

"We know how to eat and drink, but we don't remember our work. Yesterday
we could do nothing all day but eat and drink, and I'll be bound we
forgot to put down what we spent. What a memory! Lord have mercy on us!"

The old man recalls aloud the expenditure of the day before, and writes
down in a tattered notebook where and how much he had given to guards,
engine-drivers, oilers....

Meanwhile the passenger train has long ago gone off, and an engine
runs backwards and forwards on the empty line, apparently without any
definite object, but simply enjoying its freedom. The sun has risen and
is playing on the snow; bright drops are falling from the station roof
and the tops of the vans.

Having finished his tea, the old man lazily saunters from the van to the
station. Here in the middle of the first-class waiting-room he sees the
familiar figure of the guard standing beside the station-master, a young
man with a handsome beard and in a magnificent rough woollen overcoat.
The young man, probably new to his position, stands in the same place,
gracefully shifting from one foot to the other like a good racehorse,
looks from side to side, salutes everyone that passes by, smiles and
screws up his eyes.... He is red-cheeked, sturdy, and good-humored;
his face is full of eagerness, and is as fresh as though he had just
fallen from the sky with the feathery snow. Seeing Malahin, the guard
sighs guiltily and throws up his hands.

"We can't go number fourteen," he says. "We are very much behind time.
Another train has gone with that numb