"We are all right," he said, talking to himself. "First, we had a sip, and here we are smoking. She won't let me have any tobacco, the old hag, sure as fate she won't, the man is right. Will she give me food? She may send me what is left over from her meals. Well, we, too, had money, but now we have none. Such is life. To-day you eat and drink your fill, you enjoy yourself and smoke a pipe,
"'And to-morrow—where art thou, man?'
Still it would not be a bad thing to have a bite now. I drink like a fish and I hardly ever have a square meal. Doctors say drinking does you good only when followed by a hearty meal, as the Most Reverend Smaragd said when we passed through Oboyan. Was it Oboyan? The deuce knows, it may have been Kromy. But that's immaterial now. The main question is, how to get something to eat. I recollect that my man put a sausage and three rolls into the bag. Caviar is too expensive for the rascal. Look at the fellow—sleeps like a log and sings through his nose. I wouldn't be surprised if he were sitting on the bag."
He rummaged about in search of the bag, but could not find it.
"Ivan Mikhailych, Ivan Mikhailych," he shouted to the sleeping innkeeper. The man woke up and for a while could not make out where he was and how he happened to be sitting opposite his master.
"I was just beginning to nap," he said finally.
"Sleep, friend, sleep. I only want to know where the bag with the food is."
"Are you hungry? But you would like a drink first, I suppose."
"Right. Where is the bottle?"
Stepan Vladimirych took a drink, and then attacked the sausage, which happened to be as salty as salt itself and as hard as stone, so that he had to use the point of his knife to pierce it.