The girl broke in.
"No, granny," she said, "first he put his wallet in the middle of the room, and only later did he put it on the bench."
And they began to dispute and to recall his words and deeds: where he had sat down, and where he had slept, and what he had done, and what he had said to each.
Toward evening the master of the house came home on a horse, and he, too, began to tell about Eliséy, and how he had stayed at their house.
"If he had not come to us," he said, "we should all of us have died in sin. We were dying in despair, and we murmured against God and men. But he put us on our feet, and through him we found out God, and began to believe in good people. May Christ save him! Before that we lived like beasts, and he has made men of us."
They gave Efím to eat and to drink, and gave him a place to sleep, and themselves went to bed.
As Efím lay down, he could not sleep, and Eliséy did not leave his mind, but he thought of how he had seen him three times in Jerusalem in the foremost place.
"So this is the way he got ahead of me," he thought. "My work may be accepted or not, but his the Lord has accepted."
In the morning Efím bade the people good-bye: they filled his wallet with cakes and went to work, while Efím started out on the road.