“You need not be anything. And are you fond of pigeons?”
“Yes.”
“What a good-for-nothing you are! Oh! Eh!” Yozhov imitated Foma’s slow way of speaking. “How many pigeons do you have?”
“I have none.”
“Eh, you! Rich, and yet you have no pigeons. Even I have three. If my father had been rich I would have had a hundred pigeons and chased them all day long. Smolin has pigeons, too, fine ones! Fourteen. He made me a present of one. Only, he is greedy. All the rich are greedy. And you, are you greedy, too?”
“I don’t know,” said Foma, irresolutely.
“Come up to Smolin’s and the three of us together will chase the pigeons.”
“Very well. If they let me.”
“Why, does not your father like you?”
“He does like me.”