“But the troubles have come and that makes the price high,” whined the old man. “Am I to starve among my cigarettes? There are few enough to buy these days, I tell you.”
“I will pay, but you are an old robber,” said Peter, going into his pockets and fetching out two ten-ruble notes of Imperial money. The old man’s eyes danced, for he knew Imperials to be worth twice again the new paper money on which his prices were based.
“Did you come here for a ruganie?” demanded the old man, meaning a mutual slandering of each other in Russian in which both parties to the argument call names of an import so evil as to chill the marrows of respectable listeners. “And you! You look like a gentleman. From what place have you come?”
“From the place I go back to. Have you been in Chita long, little grandfather?”
“I?” asked the old man, stroking his whiskers. “Yes. What does it matter? I shall be here all time. See the hills outside? My bones shall build them higher,” and he broke out into a cackling laugh as if the joke were one that he used often and still liked its flavor.
“You were here in the old days?” pressed Peter.
The old one gave Peter a keen look, and sat down on the end of the bench, hiding the precious ten-ruble notes away somewhere under his arms.
“I? Why not?”
“You were here when the prison was full of unfortunates?”
“I was here when it was emptied, too,” and he laughed again and bent to poke the fire with an old cane. But he was getting cautious again, as if he suspected that there might be more behind the twenty rubles than he had bargained for.