"Bless your heart," he shouted, "I'm not a saint! Very far from it, I'm afraid. I'm only a man, like yourself."
"A man indeed!" said Boris; "and such a man as I have not seen the likeness of—well, since I last looked in the looking-glass!"
Boris made this remark in perfectly good faith, and without the slightest intention of paying himself a compliment. He knew well enough that he was by many degrees the strongest and finest-looking man in the country side, and by comparing the stranger with himself he merely offered honest testimony to the magnificent appearance of the latter. Nor was his admiration misplaced, for a finer-looking young fellow than he who now bent over Boris was rarely seen. Scarcely more than a boy—he was about the same age as Boris himself—the stranger was tall and robust, and straight as a young pine; taller than Boris, and broader too, though not more athletic-looking. His face was handsome and powerful, and his black hair curled in masses over a wide forehead and bold, rather cruel eyes. Boris gazed in admiration at this magnificent specimen of humanity—it was a new sensation to him to see any one physically superior to himself.
"You made a good fight," said the stranger, guffawing once more over the last speech of Boris; "but though you seem to have a fairly good opinion of yourself, that bear would have been lying on the top of you by this time if I had not come up in the nick of time. I watched the fight for some minutes. You have pluck, I am pleased to observe. What is your name?"
"Boris the Bear-Hunter," replied that worthy.
"Ha, ha! Boris the Bear-Hunted, you mean," laughed the stranger. "Well, I should like to know more of you, if you will. Come and see me to-morrow morning at Archangel, and we'll have a chat."
"Very well, barin" (gentleman), said Boris, feeling, in spite of his own usually defiant independence of spirit, that here was one who must of necessity command and be obeyed; "for I see you are a barin by your kaftan. What are you called, and where shall I seek you?"
"Petka, and sometimes Petrushka, is my name," said the big youth; "and you may ask for me at the burgomaster's house in the town. You will hear of me there till eleven to-morrow; after that I take ship for a sail abroad. And now I will leave you and mishka[1] yonder to take care of one another. Beware, while you skin him, that he doesn't jump up and skin you. He may be shamming while I am here, you see; but he has no cause to be afraid of you."