tea-house was dull and muffled, and made Vanya pleasantly dizzy. Making his way slowly among the tables, he was looking for a place, and could not find one. All the seats were occupied by red-faced cabbies, and hollow-cheeked, half-naked artisans. Ragged roughs with thievish eyes were sullenly scrutinizing Ivan. One of them, a tall, lean fellow with red mustaches, winked at him and said, thrusting out his hand:

“Hello, greenhorn! Come here!”

Vanya lunged away from him and brushed against a small, rotund girl. Her face was a bright red and her black eyebrows were as large as mustaches.

“Look out, you booby!” she shouted in a hoarse voice.

In the corner of the room under the burning icon-lamp a man sat alone at a table. Vanyushka went over to him.

“May I sit down here?”

“Suit yourself.”

Kuzin sat down at the table, undid the collar of his caftan, and said:

“Lots of people here!”

“A place like this is never empty. You from the country?”

“Yes.”

“Looking for work?”

“Why, yes.”

“Nothing much doing here.”

“That so?”

“It’s the truth. This is my third week here.…”

“No work?”

“Fact is—you starve.”

A waiter dashed past the table.

“I’d like tea!” Vanyushka shouted at him, and began to examine his companion.

He was a man of about twenty-five, wearing a woman’s quilted jacket, greasy and ragged. Tall and thin, he was bent low over the table as though he were trying to hide from people his pock-marked, hairless face. At times, with a swift, strong movement of his neck, he lifted his close-cropped head and looked at Kuzin uneasily with his large, gray eyes, as though he were speculating about something. When he noticed that Vanyushka was scrutinizing him, he gave him a thin-lipped smile, and said in a whisper:

“I had an overcoat: I ate it up. I had a cap: I ate it up. What’s left are my boots.…”

He thrust out from under the table a long leg in a sturdy leather boot, and added:

“Soon I’ll have to sell these too. I’ll trade them in.”