The invitation was accepted. The undertaker asked the bootmaker to sit down and have a cup of tea, and thanks to Gottlieb Schultz's frank disposition, they were soon talking in a friendly way.
"How does your business get on?" enquired Adrian.
"Oh, oh," replied Schultz, "one way and another I have no reason to complain. Though, of course, my goods are not like yours. A living man can do without boots, but a corpse cannot do without a coffin."
"Perfectly true," said Adrian, "still, if a living man has nothing to buy boots with he goes barefooted, whereas the destitute corpse gets his coffin sometimes for nothing."
Their conversation continued in this style for some time, until at last the bootmaker rose and took leave of the undertaker, repeating his invitation.
Next day, punctually at twelve o'clock, the undertaker and his daughters passed out at the gate of their newly-bought house, and proceeded to their neighbours. I do not intend to describe Adrian's Russian caftan nor the European dress of Akulina or Daria, contrary though this be to the custom of fiction-writers of the present day. I don't, however, think it superfluous to mention that both, maidens wore yellow bonnets and scarlet shoes, which they only did on great occasions.
The bootmaker's small lodging was filled with guests, principally German artisans, their wives, and assistants. Of Russian officials there was only one watchman, the Finn Yurko, who had managed, in spite of his humble position, to gain the special favour of his chief. He had also performed the functions of postman for about twenty-five years, serving truly and faithfully the people of Pogorelsk. The fire which, in the year 1812, consumed the capital, burnt at the same time his humble sentry box. But no sooner had the enemy fled, when in its place appeared a small, new, grey sentry box, with tiny white columns of Doric architecture, and Yurko resumed his patrol in front of it with battle-axe on shoulder, and in the civic armour of the police uniform.
He was well known to the greater portion of the German residents near the Nikitski Gates, some of whom had occasionally even passed the night from Sunday until Monday in Yurko's box.
Adrian promptly made friends with a man of whom, sooner or later, he might have need, and as the guests were just then going in to dinner they sat down together.
Mr. and Mrs. Schultz and their daughter, the seventeen-year-old Lotchen, while dining with their guests, attended to their wants and assisted the cook to wait upon them. Beer flowed. Yurko ate for four, and Adrian did not fall short of him, though his daughters stood upon ceremony.