“But what is he? what’s his business?”

“He is a discharged soldier, a sergeant, and he has no business.  He mends and soles old shoes.  That’s all the business he has.  He supports himself by that, too.”

“Where does he live?  Take me to him.”

“Yes, I’ll show you the way.  You’ll tell him you gave me the watch, won’t you?  He keeps calling me names about it, and my mother keeps asking, ‘Who do you take after, that you’re such a scamp?’”

The boy and I went together to his house.  It was merely a rickety hut built in the back yard of a factory that had been burned down and never built up again.  We found Trofimytsch and his wife at home.  The discharged sergeant was a tall old man, straight and strong, with grayish-yellow whiskers, unshaven chin, a network of wrinkles on his forehead and cheeks.  His wife looked older than he:  her eyes shone dimly from the midst of a somewhat swollen face, into which they seemed to have been driven.  Both wore dirty rags for clothes.  I explained to Trofimytsch what I wanted and why I had come.  He listened in silence, without even winking or turning his dull, attentive, soldierlike glance away from me.

“How foolish!” he said at last with a rough, toothless bass voice.  “Do fine young men behave like that?  If Petka did not steal the watch, that is one thing; but if he did, then I’ll give it to him with the stick, as they used to do in the regiment.  What is that?  ’What a pity!’ The stick, that’s all.  Pshaw!” Trofimytsch uttered these incoherent exclamations in falsetto:  he had apparently understood nothing.

“If you will give me back the watch,” I explained—­I did not venture to say “thou” to him, although he was but a common soldier—­“I’ll willingly give you a ruble for it.  I don’t think it’s worth more.”

“Humph!” muttered Trofimytsch, who still did not understand, but continued to gaze at me attentively as if I were his superior officer.  “So that’s the way the matter stands?  Well, then, take it.—­Be still, Uliana!” he screamed angrily at his wife, who opened her mouth as if she were about to speak.—­“There is the watch,” he continued, opening a drawer:  “if it’s yours, be kind enough to take it, but why should I take the ruble?”

“Take the ruble, Trofimytsch, you fool!” sobbed his wife.  “Have you gone crazy, old man?  Not a single farthing have we left in our pockets if we were to turn them inside out, and here you are putting on airs!  They’ve cut off your pigtail, but you’re an old woman still.  How can you act so?  Take the money!  Would you give the watch away?”

“Be still, you chatterbox!” repeated Trofimytsch.  “When did one ever see such a sight?  A woman reasoning! ha!  Her husband is the head, and she—­disputes!—­Petka, don’t mutter, or I’ll kill you.—­There’s the watch.”  Trofimytsch held out the watch toward me, but would not let go of it.  He considered for a moment:  then he lowered his eyes and fixed that dull, straightforward glance upon me, and then suddenly screamed as loud as he could, “Where is it? where is the ruble?”