put a bullet through you, my friend"; and he'd got drunk on my money!'
'Anything more?'
'Anything more? I've rubbed a blister on my heel; one of my boots is awfully big. And now I'm hungry, and my head's splitting from the vodka.'
'Have you drunk much, then?'
'No, not much—only to set the example; but I've been in five ginshops. But I can't stand that filth—vodka—a bit. And how our peasant can drink it passes my understanding! If one must drink vodka to be simplified, I'd rather be excused.'
'And so no one suspected you?'
'No one. An innkeeper, a stout, pale man with whitish eyes, was the only person who looked at me suspiciously. I heard him tell his wife to "keep an eye on that red-haired chap . . . with the squint." (I never knew till then that I squinted.) "He's a sharper. Do you see how ponderously he drinks?" What ponderously means in that context I didn't understand; but it could hardly be a compliment. Something after the style of Gogol's "movy-ton" in the Revising Inspector; do you remember? Perhaps because I tried to pour my vodka under the table on the sly. Ugh! it's hard, it's hard for an æsthetic
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