"See how lucky he is, that little devil from the Zvezdrinki; I know him."
A thin workman who smelt like a furrier said maliciously:
"He is a little devil, is he? Goo-oo-ood!"
Taking a sudden aim, he coolly knocked over my stake, and, bending down to me, said:
"Will that make you howl?"
"Three copecks on the pair to the right!"
"I shall have another three," he said, but he lost.
One could not put money on the same "horse" more than three times running, so I chose other hucklebones and won four more copecks. I had a heap of hucklebones. But when my turn came again, I placed money three times, and lost it all. Simultaneously mass was finished, the bell rang, and the people came out of church.
"Are you married?" inquired the furrier, intending to seize me by the hair; but I eluded him, and overtaking a lad in his Sunday clothes I inquired politely:
"Have you been to communion?"