Iona tugs at the reins and clicks to his horse.  Twenty kopecks is not a fair price, but he has no thoughts for that.  Whether it is a rouble or whether it is five kopecks does not matter to him now so long as he has a fare....  The three young men, shoving each other and using bad language, go up to the sledge, and all three try to sit down at once.  The question remains to be settled:  Which are to sit down and which one is to stand?  After a long altercation, ill-temper, and abuse, they come to the conclusion that the hunchback must stand because he is the shortest.

“Well, drive on,” says the hunchback in his cracked voice, settling himself and breathing down Iona’s neck.  “Cut along!  What a cap you’ve got, my friend!  You wouldn’t find a worse one in all Petersburg....”

“He-he!... he-he!...” laughs Iona.  “It’s nothing to boast of!”

“Well, then, nothing to boast of, drive on!  Are you going to drive like this all the way?  Eh?  Shall I give you one in the neck?”

“My head aches,” says one of the tall ones.  “At the Dukmasovs’ yesterday Vaska and I drank four bottles of brandy between us.”

“I can’t make out why you talk such stuff,” says the other tall one angrily.  “You lie like a brute.”

“Strike me dead, it’s the truth!...”

“It’s about as true as that a louse coughs.”

“He-he!” grins Iona.  “Me-er-ry gentlemen!”

“Tfoo! the devil take you!” cries the hunchback indignantly.  “Will you get on, you old plague, or won’t you?  Is that the way to drive?  Give her one with the whip.  Hang it all, give it her well.”

Iona feels behind his back the jolting person and quivering voice of the hunchback.  He hears abuse addressed to him, he sees people, and the feeling of loneliness begins little by little to be less heavy on his heart.  The hunchback swears at him, till he chokes over some elaborately whimsical string of epithets and is overpowered by his cough.  His tall companions begin talking of a certain Nadyezhda Petrovna.  Iona looks round at them.  Waiting till there is a brief pause, he looks round once more and says: 

“This week... er... my... er... son died!”

“We shall all die,...” says the hunchback with a sigh, wiping his lips after coughing.  “Come, drive on! drive on!  My friends, I simply cannot stand crawling like this!  When will he get us there?”

“Well, you give him a little encouragement... one in the neck!”

“Do you hear, you old plague?  I’ll make you smart.  If one stands on ceremony with fellows like you one may as well walk.  Do you hear, you old dragon?  Or don’t you care a hang what we say?”

And Iona hears rather than feels a slap on the back of his neck.

“He-he!...” he laughs.  “Merry gentlemen....  God give you health!”

“Cabman, are you married?” asks one of the tall ones.

“I?  He he!  Me-er-ry gentlemen.  The only wife for me now is the damp earth....  He-ho-ho!....  The grave that is!...  Here my son’s dead and I am alive....  It’s a strange thing, death has come in at the wrong door....  Instead of coming for me it went for my son....”