"And have you put by nothing out of your wages?"
"Yes, sir; I had over a hundred and fifty gulden laid by. I had spared everything on myself—food and drink, and even the pipe—and I had got together this sum. Then what should the devil do but bring the recruiting commission down here, and I had to give all my money into the greasy palm of the examining doctor, so that he might report me as being unfit for service because I squinted. It's a trick I have. I can squint for a quarter of an hour together, although my eyes are straight; on this account I shall be let off by the doctor, but my hundred and fifty gulden are gone. I shall have to squint at the marriage ceremony, for the priest only marries me because I am unfit for service."
"Well, Peter, you may count upon some help from me."
"Thank you, sir, but I don't like loans; that is like eating one's supper at dinner."
By this time they had reached the place where the strangers were waiting.
"Ah," cried Ivan, "so it is you, Felix!" and he held out his hand cordially to the visitor.
The old acquaintance whom Ivan called Felix looked as if he belonged to another generation. His soft complexion, carefully waxed mustache, short imperial, his fine, dark-blue eyes, and particularly the shape of his head, and the way it was placed on his shoulders, taken together with his elegant dress, which the rough miner's blouse could not quite conceal, betrayed the man of the world. When he spoke, his voice was almost womanly; the tone was clear and high, like one of the Pope's choir.
Felix hastened at once to put his friend's mind at ease upon a necessary part of his visit.
"I hope you will forgive our putting up at the inn. I was sure you would have made us welcome, but you are a busy man, and you would not care to be at the bother of entertaining us; besides, like all men of business, you are, I dare say, a little in the rough, and the inn is really very comfortable. May I introduce you to my travelling companion, Gustav Rauné? He is a mine-surveyor and engineer."
Ivan was well pleased at his friend's forethought in the matter of hospitality; not that he would not have made him welcome so far as lay in his power—and there were unoccupied rooms in the house which would have accommodated the two men—but his manner of life would have been disturbed. He had never for one moment thought of entertaining a guest.