tick down full swing on a bullock's back. The bullock staggers
with the pain, runs forward a dozen paces, and looks about him as though
he were ashamed at being beaten before people.

After selling the bullocks and buying for his family presents such as
they could perfectly well have bought at home, Malahin and Yasha get
ready for their journey back. Three hours before the train goes the old
man, who has already had a drop too much with the purchaser and so is
fussy, goes down with Yasha to the restaurant and sits down to drink
tea. Like all provincials, he cannot eat and drink alone: he must have
company as fussy and as fond of sedate conversation as himself.

"Call the host!" he says to the waiter; "tell him I should like to
entertain him."

The hotel-keeper, a well-fed man, absolutely indifferent to his lodgers,
comes and sits down to the table.

"Well, we have sold our stock," Malahin says, laughing. "I have swapped
my goat for a hawk. Why, when we set off the price of meat was three
roubles ninety kopecks, but when we arrived it had dropped to three
roubles twenty-five. They tell us we are too late, we should have been
here three days earlier, for now there is not the same demand for meat,
St. Philip's fast has come.... Eh? It's a nice how-do-you-do! It
meant a loss of fourteen roubles on each bullock. Yes. But only think
what it costs to bring the stock! Fifteen roubles carriage, and you must
put down six roubles for each bullock, tips, bribes, drinks, and one
thing and another...."

The hotel-keeper listens out of politeness and reluctantly drinks tea.
Malahin sighs and groans, gesticulates, jests about his ill-luck, but
everything shows that the loss he has sustained does not trouble him
much. He doesn't mind whether he has lost or gained as long as he has
listeners, has something to make a fuss about, and is not late for his
train.

An hour later Malahin and Yasha, laden with bags and boxes, go
downstairs from the hotel room to the front door to get into a sledge
and drive to the station. They are seen off by the hotel-keeper, the
waiter, and various women. The old man is touched. He thrusts ten-kopeck
pieces in all directions, and says in a sing-song voice:

"Good by, good health to you! God grant that all may be well with
you. Please God if we are alive and well we shall come again in Lent.
Good-by. Thank you. God bless you!"

Getting into the sledge, the old man spends a long time crossing himself