I continued to read on the sly. The old woman destroyed books several times, and I suddenly found myself in debt to the shopkeeper for the enormous amount of forty-seven copecks. He demanded the money, and threatened to take it from my employers' money when they sent me to make purchases.
"What would happen then?" he asked jeeringly.
To me he was unbearably repulsive. Apparently he felt this, and tortured me with various threats from which he derived a peculiar enjoyment. When I went into the shop his pimply face broadened, and he would ask gently:
"Have you brought your debt?"
"No."
This startled him. He frowned.
"How is that? Am I supposed to give you things out of charity? I shall have to get it from you by sending you to the reformatory."
I had no way of getting the money, my wages were paid to grandfather. I lost my presence of mind. What would happen to me? And in answer to my entreaty that he wait for settlement of the debt, the shopkeeper stretched out his oily, puffy hand, like a bladder, and said:
"Kiss my hand and I will wait."
But when I seized a weight from the counter and brandished it at him, he ducked and cried: