He fidgetted uneasily, his eyes on the gold. I put the three coins together. “The silver for the food, and gold for the waiter,” I said.
He sighed regretfully. “Impossible,” he murmured.
“Mayn’t you buy food for yourself? Have you had supper?”
His eyes gleamed. A slow smile of cunning spread over his face. He stretched out his hand. I put the two silver coins into it. “One pays the waiter at the end of dinner.”
He was disappointed, and stood glancing from the coins in the palm of his hand to me and back from me to the coins. Then he decided to earn the gold.
He knocked on the door of the cell and a comrade came. They whispered together; the coins jingled; and the comrade departed.
In half an hour he returned with some food: a cold chicken, some bread and tea. The cost was probably under a rouble and the comrade had thus paid himself in advance.
There was no knife; so I had to eat the fowl as best I could; pulling the joints asunder and gnawing the flesh. But I was too hungry to bother about that. When I had finished I gave the man the gold piece.
“I must give him something,” he grumbled.
“Give him what you like out of that,” I answered, getting a very black look from him.