"Not with your mouth, anyhow. You can knock them down with a stick or a stone, but the surest way is to fish for them! You must tie a piece of fat meat or a bit of bread at the end of a long piece of cord. The raven seizes it, gulps it down, and you haul him in. Then you twist his neck, pluck him, draw him, and, fastening him on to a stick, roast him over a fire."
"Ah! it would be nice to be sitting by a fire now," I sighed.
The cold had become more sensible. It seemed as if the very wind were freezing, it beat against the walls of the magazine with such a painful tremulous whine. Sometimes it was wafted to us along with the howl of some dog, the crowing of a cock, and the melancholy sound of the bell of the village church, hidden in the darkness. Drops of rain fell heavily from the roof of the magazine on to the wet earth.
"'Tis dull to be silent," observed my fellow night-lodger.
"It's rather cold ... to talk," I said.
"Put your tongue in your pocket ... it will warm it up."
"Thanks for the hint!"
"We will go together, eh? When we take the road I mean...?"
"All right!"
"Let us introduce ourselves then ... I, for instance, am Pavel Ignat'ev Promtov, Esq."