“Damned blackguard!” the bar-keeper shouts after him as he runs back to the railway van.

The scowling face of Malahin grows a little brighter over the tea.

“We know how to eat and drink, but we don’t remember our work.  Yesterday we could do nothing all day but eat and drink, and I’ll be bound we forgot to put down what we spent.  What a memory!  Lord have mercy on us!”

The old man recalls aloud the expenditure of the day before, and writes down in a tattered notebook where and how much he had given to guards, engine-drivers, oilers....

Meanwhile the passenger train has long ago gone off, and an engine runs backwards and forwards on the empty line, apparently without any definite object, but simply enjoying its freedom.  The sun has risen and is playing on the snow; bright drops are falling from the station roof and the tops of the vans.

Having finished his tea, the old man lazily saunters from the van to the station.  Here in the middle of the first-class waiting-room he sees the familiar figure of the guard standing beside the station-master, a young man with a handsome beard and in a magnificent rough woollen overcoat.  The young man, probably new to his position, stands in the same place, gracefully shifting from one foot to the other like a good racehorse, looks from side to side, salutes everyone that passes by, smiles and screws up his eyes....  He is red-cheeked, sturdy, and good-humored; his face is full of eagerness, and is as fresh as though he had just fallen from the sky with the feathery snow.  Seeing Malahin, the guard sighs guiltily and throws up his hands.

“We can’t go number fourteen,” he says.  “We are very much behind time.  Another train has gone with that number.”

The station-master rapidly looks through some forms, then turns his beaming blue eyes upon Malahin, and, his face radiant with smiles and freshness, showers questions on him: 

“You are Mr. Malahin?  You have the cattle?  Eight vanloads?  What is to be done now?  You are late and I let number fourteen go in the night.  What are we to do now?”

The young man discreetly takes hold of the fur of Malahin’s coat with two pink fingers and, shifting from one foot to the other, explains affably and convincingly that such and such numbers have gone already, and that such and such are going, and that he is ready to do for Malahin everything in his power.  And from his face it is evident that he is ready to do anything to please not only Malahin, but the whole world—­he is so happy, so pleased, and so delighted!  The old man listens, and though he can make absolutely nothing of the intricate system of numbering the trains, he nods his head approvingly, and he, too, puts two fingers on the soft wool of the rough coat.  He enjoys seeing and hearing the polite and genial young man.  To show goodwill on his side also, he takes out a ten-rouble note and, after a moment’s thought, adds a couple of rouble notes to it, and gives them to the station-master.  The latter takes them, puts his finger to his cap, and gracefully thrusts them into his pocket.