as a rule, he had a heavy drunken headache, and
in the evening he caroused. However much he drank, he was never drunk,
and so was always merry.

In the evenings he received lodgers, sitting on his brickmade bench
with his pipe in his mouth.

"Whom have we here?" he would ask the ragged and tattered object
approaching him, who had probably been chucked out of the town for
drunkenness, or perhaps for some other reason not quite so simple. And
after the man had answered him, he would say, "Let me see legal papers
in confirmation of your lies." And if there were such papers they were
shown. The Captain would then put them in his bosom, seldom taking any
interest in them, and would say:

"Everything is in order. Two kopecks for the night, ten kopecks for
the week, and thirty kopecks for the month. Go and get a place for
yourself, and see that it is not other people's, or else they will blow
you up. The people that live here are particular."

"Don't you sell tea, bread, or anything to eat?"

"I trade only in walls and roofs, for which I pay to the swindling
proprietor of this hole--Judas Petunikoff, merchant of the second
guild--five roubles a month," explained Kuvalda in a business-like
tone. "Only those come to me who are not accustomed to comfort and
luxuries .... but if you are accustomed to eat every day, then there is
the eating-house opposite. But it would be better for you if you left
off that habit. You see you are not a gentleman. What do you eat?
You eat yourself!"

For such speeches, delivered in a strictly business-like manner, and
always with smiling eyes, and also for the attention he paid to his
lodgers the Captain was very popular among the poor of the town. It
very often happened that a former client of his would appear, not in
rags, but in something more respectable and with a slightly happier
face.

"Good-day, your honour, and how do you do?"

"Alive, in good health! Go on."

"Don't you know me?"

"I did not know you."

"Do you remember that I lived with you last winter for nearly a month
.... when the fight with the police took place, and three were taken
away?"

"My brother, that is so. The police do come even under my hospitable
roof!"

"My God! You gave a piece of your mind to the police inspector of this
district!"

"Wouldn't you accept some small hospitality from me? When I lived with
you, you were ..."

"Gratitude must be encouraged because it is seldom met wit