“Yes, they called up the merchant, too; but all he would say was:—‘Of course the timber had to be watched. All my capital’s in timber.... It’s always getting stolen.... The police are never there when you want them.... How was I to know he was going to keep watch that way?’... Well, and how was I to know who was there? I heard somebody scrabbling about, and I banged him.... So that’s how it all ended: I wasn’t guilty; nor the merchant wasn’t guilty neither.... Only he was a regular Jew, he was—he wouldn’t take me back again afterwards. He said:—‘You set about your work too much in earnest. I only promised you six roubles, and you went and killed a man straight off; if I were to pay you your wages, the Lord knows what you’d do with your cudgel!’ So he took a soldier, and gave me the sack.... Reg’lar Jew, he was!... Well, what else do you want?”
“Is that the whole story?”
“That’s all.... Want anything else?”
“No, that’s all; you can go.”
The lad rushed up the steps like a whirlwind, and the steward started afresh upon his dissertation:—
“That’s how it was,” said he; “when you come to think of it, it seems as if the lad ought to be locked up; killed a man and smashed his head in—that’s clear enough. But when they came to look into the case, and understood all about it, he turns out innocent.... That’s just what I was saying: If so be as a man’s really guilty, you’ve got to punish him; but, however much it looks as if a man was guilty, if you can prove him innocent, you should; and if you go and punish an innocent man, I say there isn’t any justice in it.... That’s what I think....”
“Ye-e-es,” remarked the shopkeeper, to whom the steward mainly addressed himself. Pouring out the remainder of his bottle of beer, he added: “Of course, it would really be fairer-like ... to do so ... that’s true. Give me another bottle.”
The steward uncorked a bottle, took the cork off the corkscrew, put it back in its place, came out of his bar, and brought the bottle to the shopkeeper. At that moment there rose from one of the sofas, pulling down a print shirt over an enormous paunch, another passenger, also a tradesman. He was a man of gigantic height, with a good-natured expression of face. He went up to the steward, and taking him by the shoulder, asked, with a slight smile—
“But the peasant, most respected sir, what about him? Is he guilty, or not?”
“What peasant?”