On arrival at the spirit-shop they went in.
"The policeman tells us you buy skins at a rouble for a dozen. We have ten dozen."
"Are they good and uninjured?" the man asked.
"They are. There is not a hole in any of them."
The man looked them through carefully.
"I will buy them," he said. "Do you want money, or will you take some of it in vodka?"
"We want money. We do not drink in summer when we are hunting."
The man handed over ten rouble notes, and they passed out. A minute later the policeman strolled in.
"Wanderers?" he said with a wink. The vodka seller shrugged his shoulders.
"I did not ask them," he said. "They came to me with a good recommendation, for they told me that you had sent them here. So after that it was not for me to question them."