which there were smudges of paint.

"You might at least have washed your phiz!" Sigaev went on. "You
are a disgraceful sight! Have you been boozing, or . . . are you
ill, or what? But why don't you speak? I am asking you: are you
ill?"

Shtchiptsov did not speak. In spite of the paint on his face, the
comic man could not help noticing his striking pallor, the drops
of sweat on his forehead, and the twitching of his lips. His hands
and feet were trembling too, and the whole huge figure of the
"good-natured simpleton" looked somehow crushed and flattened. The
comic man took a rapid glance round the room, but saw neither bottle
nor flask nor any other suspicious vessel.

"I say, Mishutka, you know you are ill!" he said in a flutter.
"Strike me dead, you are ill! You don't look yourself!"

Shtchiptsov remained silent and stared disconsolately at the floor.

"You must have caught cold," said Sigaev, taking him by the hand.
"Oh, dear, how hot your hands are! What's the trouble?"

"I wa-ant to go home," muttered Shtchiptsov.

"But you are at home now, aren't you?"

"No. . . . To Vyazma. . . ."

"Oh, my, anywhere else! It would take you three years to get to
your Vyazma. . . . What? do you want to go and see your daddy and
mummy? I'll be bound, they've kicked the bucket years ago, and you
won't find their graves. . . ."

"My ho-ome's there."

"Come, it's no good giving way to the dismal dumps. These neurotic
feelings are the limit, old man. You must get well, for you have
to play Mitka in 'The Terrible Tsar' to-morrow. There is nobody
else to do it. Drink something hot and take some castor-oil? Have
you got the money for some castor-oil? Or, stay, I'll run and buy
some."

The comic man fumbled in his pockets, found a fifteen-kopeck piece,
and ran to the chemist's. A quarter of an hour later he came back.

"Come, drink it," he said, holding the bottle to the "heavy father's"
mouth. "Drink it straight out of the bottle. . . . All at a go!
That's the way. . . . Now nibble at a clove that your very soul
mayn't stink of the filthy stuff."

The comic man sat a little longer with his sick friend, then kissed
him tenderly, and went away. Towards evening the _jeune premier_,
Brama-Glinsky, ran in to see Shtchiptsov. The gifted actor was
wearing a pair of prunella boots, had a glove on his left hand, was
smoking a cigar, and even smelt of heliotrope, yet nevertheless he
strongly suggested a traveller cast away in some