One day after the singer had refreshed himself and gone away, the tavern-keeper tried to persuade Luissukha.
"Why don't you amuse yourself with Kleshtchkov for a bit, Marie Evdokimova; you'd shake him up, wouldn't you? What would you want for it?"
"If I were younger," she said with a laugh.
The tavern-keeper cried loudly and warmly:
"What can the young ones do? But you—you will get hold of him! We shall see him dancing round you! When he is bowed down by grief he will be able to sing, won't he? Take him in hand, Evdokimova, and do me a favor, will you?"
But she would not do it. Large and fat, she lowered her eyes and played with the fringe of the handkerchief which covered her bosom, as she said in a monotonous, lazy drawl:
"It's a young person that is needed here. If I were younger, well, I would not think twice about it."
Almost every night the tavern-keeper tried to make Kleshtchkov drunk, but the latter, after two or three songs and a glassful after each, would carefully wrap up his throat with a knitted scarf, draw his cap well over his tufted head, and depart.
The tavern-keeper often tried to find a rival for Kleshtchkov. The harness-maker would sing a song and then the host, after praising him, would say:
"Here is another singer. Come along now, show what you can do!"