"Good luck," said Ilya. "Fancy meeting you!"
Pashka took his hand, pressed it and laughed. His teeth and eyes shone bright and dear for a moment under his black mask.
"How goes it?" asked Ilya.
"It goes as it can. When there's anything to bite at, I bite, and when there's nothing I whine and lie curled up. Ha! ha! I'm jolly glad to meet you anyhow!"
"Why do you never come to see us?" asked Ilya, smiling. It was pleasant to him to see an old comrade glad to meet him in spite of his dirty face. He looked at Pashka's worn boots and then at his own new, shining pair that had cost nine roubles, and smiled complacently.
"How should I know where you live?" said Pashka.
"With Filimonov, just the same."
"Oh! Jashka said you were in some fish shop or other."
Ilya related with pride his experiences in the house of Strogany, and how now he was keeping himself.
"That's the way," cried Gratschev approvingly, "they turned me out of the printing works just the same way, for insolence. Then I was with a painter, mixed the colours and that sort of thing, till one day I sat down on a fresh-painted signboard, and then of course there was a row, they all went for me, master and mistress, and pupils, till their arms were tired out and then sent me to the devil. Now I'm with a well-sinker, six roubles a month. I've just had dinner and I'm going back to work."