“A fine gun that! Why, Ivan Nikiforovich, the hammer is spoiled.”

“What! how spoiled? It can be repaired: all that needs to be done is to rub it with hemp-oil, so that it may not rust.”

“I see in your words, Ivan Nikiforovich, anything but a friendly disposition towards me. You will do nothing for me in token of friendship.”

“How can you say, Ivan Ivanovich, that I show you no friendship? You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Your oxen pasture on my steppes, and I have never interfered with them. When you go to Poltava, you always beg my wagon, and what then? Have I ever refused? Your children climb over the fence into my yard, and play with my dogs—I never say anything; let them play, so long as they touch nothing; let them play!”

“If you won’t give it to me, then let us exchange.”

“What will you give me for it?” Thereupon Ivan Nikiforovich raised himself on his elbow, and looked at Ivan Ivanovich.

“I will give you my dark-brown sow, the one I have fed in the sty. A magnificent sow. You’ll see, she’ll bring you a litter of pigs next year.”

“I do not see, Ivan Ivanovich, how you can talk so. What could I do with your sow? Make a funeral dinner for the Devil?”

“Again! You can’t get along without the Devil! It’s a sin! by Heaven, it’s a sin, Ivan Nikiforovich!”

“What do you mean, in fact, Ivan Ivanovich, by giving, the deuce knows what—a sow—for my gun?”

“Why is she ‘the deuce knows what,’ Ivan Nikiforovich?”

“Why? You can judge for yourself perfectly well: here’s the gun, a known thing; but the deuce knows what that sow is! If it had not been you who said it, Ivan Ivanovich, I might have put an insulting construction on it.”

“What defect have you observed in the sow?”

“For what do you take me, in fact—for a sow?”…

“Sit down, sit down! I won’t… No matter about your gun; let it rot and rust where it stands, in the corner of the storeroom. I don’t want to say anything more about it!”

After this a pause ensued.

“They say,” began Ivan Ivanovich, “that three kings have declared war on our Tzar.”

“Yes: Peter Feodorovich told me. What sort of a war is this, and why?”

“I cannot say exactly, Ivan Nikiforovich, what the cause is. I suppose the kings want us to adopt the Turkish faith.”

“Fools! they would have it,” said Ivan Nikiforovich, raising his head.

“So, you see, our Tzar declared war on them in consequence. ‘No,’ says he, ‘do you adopt the faith of Christ!’ ”

“What? Why, our people will beat them, Ivan Ivanovich!”