moans and the implorings were addressed to
him. His heart contracts with some incomprehensible desire; sorrow
compressed his breast and tears gathered in his eyes, which he had
firmly closed and now feared to open.

He is tossing about in his bed restlessly.

"Sleep, my child. Christ be with you!" says the old woman, interrupting
her tale of men suffering for their sins.

But in the morning after such a night Foma rose sound and cheerful,
washed himself hastily, drank his tea in haste and ran off to school,
provided with sweet cakes, which were awaited by the always hungry
little Yozhov, who greedily subsisted on his rich friend's generosity.

"Got anything to eat?" he accosted Foma, turning up his sharp-pointed
nose. "Let me have it, for I left the house without eating anything. I
slept too long, devil take it! I studied up to two o'clock last night.
Have you solved your problems?"

"No, I haven't."

"Eh, you lazy bones! Well, I'll dash them off for you directly!"

Driving his small, thin teeth into the cakes, he purred something like a
kitten, stamped his left foot, beating time, and at the same time solved
the problem, rattling off short phrases to Foma:

"See? Eight bucketfuls leaked out in one hour. And how many hours did it
leak--six? Eh, what good things they eat in your house! Consequently, we
must multiply six by eight. Do you like cake with green onions? Oh, how
I like it! So that in six hours forty-eight bucketfuls leaked out of
the first gauge-cock. And altogether the tub contained ninety. Do you
understand the rest?"

Foma liked Yozhov better than Smolin, but he was more friendly with
Smolin. He wondered at the ability and the sprightliness of the little
fellow. He saw that Yozhov was more clever and better than himself; he
envied him, and felt offended on that account, and at the same time he
pitied him with the condescending compassion of a satisfied man for a
hungry one. Perhaps it was this very compassion that prevented him from
preferring this bright boy to the boring red-headed Smolin. Yozhov,
fond of having a laugh at the expense of his well-fed friends, told them
quite often: "Eh, you are little trunks full of cakes!"

Foma was angry with him for his sneers, and one day, touched to the
quick, said wickedly and with contempt:

"And you are a beggar--a pauper!"

Yozhov's yellow face became overcast, and he replied slowly:

"Very well, so be it! I shall never prompt you again--and you'l