"And stole others?" asked the cook, gravely.
"'No? no!' the old man said to me. 'You must act honestly in a strange land, for they are so strict here, it is said, that they will cut off your head for a mere nothing.' It is true that I did try to steal, but the result was not at all consoling. I managed to get a horse away from the yard of a certain merchant, but I had done no more than that when they caught me, knocked me about, and dragged me to the police station. There were two of us. The other was a real horse-stealer, but I did it only for the fun of the thing. But I had been working at the merchant's house, putting in a new stove for his bath, and the merchant fell ill, and had bad dreams about me, which alarmed him, so that he begged the magistrate, 'Let him go,'—that was me, you know,—'let him go; for I have had dreams about him, and if you don't let him off, you will never be well. It is plain that he is a wizard.' That was me, if you please—a wizard! However, the merchant was a person of influence, and they let me go."
"I should not have let you go. I should have let you lie in water for three days to wash the foolery out of you," said the cook.
Yaakov instantly seized upon his words.
"True, there is a lot of folly about me, and that is the fact—enough folly for a whole village."
Thrusting his fingers into his tight collar, the cook angrily dragged it up, and complained in a tone of vexation:
"Fiddlesticks! How a villain like you can live, gorge himself, drink, and stroll about the world, beats me. I should like to know what use you are."
Munching, the stoker, answered:
"I don't know myself. I live, and that is all I can say about it. One man lies down, and another walks about. A chinovnik leads a sedentary life, but every one must eat."
The cook was more incensed than ever.