"I throw money away! For whom do you take me? Isn't it enough for me to hobnob with trash, without paying their scores? I consider it a favor that I allow them to pay mine."
"And that fellow Bogun, what is he doing here?"
"He? He keeps his ears open to hear reports from the Saitch, like the rest. That is why he came here. He is the favorite of all the Cossacks. They are after him like monkeys, for it is certain that the Pereyasláv regiment will follow him, and not Loboda. And who knows, too, whom Krechovski's registered Cossacks will follow? Bogun is a brother to the men of the lower country when it is a question of attacking the Turks or the Tartars; but this time he is calculating very closely, for he confessed to me, in drink, that he was in love with a noblewoman, and intended to marry her. On this account it would not befit him, on the eve of marriage, to be a brother to slaves. He wishes, too, that I should adopt him and give him my arms. That is very excellent triple mead!"
"Take another drink of it."
"I will, I will. They don't sell such mead as that behind tavern-signs."
"You did not ask, perhaps, the name of the lady whom Bogun wants to marry?"
"Well, my dear sir, what do I care about her name? I know only that when I put horns on Bogun, she will be Madame Deer. In my youthful years I was a fellow of no ordinary beauty. Only let me tell you how I carried off the palm of martyrdom in Galáts. You see that hole in my forehead? It is enough for me to say that the eunuchs in the harem of the local pasha made it."
"But you said the bullet of a robber made it."
"Did I? Then I told the truth; for every Turk is a robber, as God is my aid!"
Further conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Zatsvilikhovski.