The boy longed to be revenged.

“Hey!  Fisherman!  Are you often drunk?” he began; but at the same instant the fisherman turned quickly around and asked: 

“Listen, youngster!  Do you want to work with me to-night?  Eh?  Answer quick.”

“Work at what?” questioned the boy, distrustfully.

“At what I shall tell you. . .  We’ll go fishing.  You shall row. . .”

“If that’s it . . . why not?  All right!  I know how to work. . .  Only suppose anything happens to me with you; you’re not reassuring, with your mysterious airs. . .”

Tchelkache felt a burning sensation in his breast and said with concentrated rage: 

“Don’t talk about what yon can’t understand, or else, I’ll hit yon on the head so hard that your ideas will soon clear up.”

He jumped up, pulling his moustache with his left hand and doubling his right fist all furrowed with knotted veins and hard as iron; his eyes flashed.

The lad was afraid.  He glanced quickly around him and, blinking timidly, also jumped up on his feet.  They measured each other with their eyes in silence.

“Well?” sternly demanded Tchelkache.

He was boiling over with rage at being insulted by this young boy, whom he had despised even when talking with him, and whom he now began to hate on account of his pure blue eyes, his healthy and sun-burned face and his short, strong arms; because he had, somewhere yonder, a village and a home in that village; because it had been proposed to him to enter as son-in-law in a well-to-do family, and, above all, because this being, who was only a child in comparison with himself, should presume to like liberty, of which he did not know the worth and which was useless to him.  It is always disagreeable to see a person whom we consider our inferior like, or dislike, the same things that we do and to be compelled to admit that in that respect they are our equals.

The lad gazed at Tchelkache and felt that he had found his master.

“Why . . .” said he; “I consent.  I’m willing.  It’s work that I’m looking for.  It’s all the same to me whether I work with you or someone else.  I only said that because you don’t seem like a man that works . . . you are far too ragged.  However, I know very well that that may happen to anyone.  Have I never seen a drunkard?  Eh!  How many I’ve seen, and much worse than you!”

“Good!  Then you consent?” asked Tchelkache, somewhat mollified.

“I, why yes, with pleasure.  Name your price.”

“My price depends upon the work.  It’s according to what we do and take.  You may perhaps receive five rubles.  Do you understand?”

But now that it was a question of money, the peasant wanted a clear understanding and exacted perfect frankness on the part of his master.  He again became distrustful and suspicious.

“That’s scarcely to my mind, friend.  I must have those five rubles in my hand how.”