while."

"You are bitter ..." said Abyedok, and coughed.

The Captain, with his feeling of superiority to the others, never
talked with his mouth full.

Having drunk twice, the company began to grow merry; the food was
grateful to them.

Paltara Taras expressed his desire to hear a tale, but the Deacon was
arguing with Kubaroff over his preferring thin women to stout ones, and
paid no attention to his friend's request. He was asserting his views
on the subject to Kubaroff with all the decision of a man who was
deeply convinced in his own mind.

The foolish face of Meteor, who was lying on the ground, showed that he
was drinking in the Deacon's strong words.

Martyanoff sat, clasping his large hairy hands round his knees, looking
silently and sadly at the bottle of vodki and pulling his moustache as
if trying to bite it with his teeth, while Abyedok was teasing Tyapa.

"I have seen you watching the place where your money is hidden!"

"That is your luck," shouted Tyapa.

"I will go halves with you, brother."

"All right, take it and welcome."

Kuvalda felt angry with these men. Among them all there was not one
worthy of hearing his oratory or of understanding him.

"I wonder where the teacher is?" he asked loudly.

Martyanoff looked at him and said, "He will come soon ..."

"I am positive that he will come, but he won't come in a carriage. Let
us drink to your future health. If you kill any rich man go halves
with me ... then I shall go to America, brother. To those ... what do
you call them? Limpas? Pampas? I will go there, and I will work my
way until I become the President of the United States, and then I will
challenge the whole of Europe to war and I will blow it up! I will buy
the army ... in Europe that is--I will invite the French, the Germans,
the Turks, and so on, and I will kill them by the hands of their own
relatives... Just as Elia Marumets bought a Tartar with a Tartar.
With money it would be possible even for Elia to destroy the whole of
Europe and to take Judas Petunikoff for his valet. He would go...
Give him a hundred roubles a month and he would go! But he would be a
bad valet, because he would soon begin to steal ..."

"Now, besides that, the thin woman is better than the stout one,
because she costs one less," said the Deacon, convincingly. "My first
Deaconess used to buy twelve arshins for her clothes, but the second
one only ten... And so on even in the matter of prov