"Seven times? That's rather a lot!"
Although he abused the stoker, the cook for some reason or other fed him with all kinds of things. He would throw a morsel to him roughly and say:
"There. Gobble it up!"
Yaakov would devour it without any haste, saying:
"I am accumulating a reserve of strength through you, Ivan Ivanovich."
"And what is the use of strength to you, lazy-bones?"
"What is the use? Why, I shall live all the longer for it."
"Why should you live, useless one?"
"But useless people go on living. Besides, you know, it is very amusing to be alive, is n't it? Living, Ivan Ivanovich, is a very comforting business."
"What an idiot!"