of card-tables.

The partners of Eugene Mihailovich's wife were the host himself, an
officer, and an old and very stupid lady in a wig, a widow who owned a
music-shop; she loved playing cards and played remarkably well. But it
was Eugene Mihailovich's wife who was the winner all the time. The best
cards were continually in her hands. At her side she had a plate with
grapes and a pear and was in the best of spirits.

"And Eugene Mihailovich? Why is he so late?" asked the hostess, who
played at another table.

"Probably busy settling accounts," said Eugene Mihailovich's wife. "He
has to pay off the tradesmen, to get in firewood." The quarrel she had
with her husband revived in her memory; she frowned, and her hands, from
which she had not taken off the mittens, shook with fury against him.

"Oh, there he is.--We have just been speaking of you," said the hostess
to Eugene Mihailovich, who came in at that very moment. "Why are you so
late?"

"I was busy," answered Eugene Mihailovich, in a gay voice, rubbing his
hands. And to his wife's surprise he came to her side and said,--"You
know, I managed to get rid of the coupon."

"No! You don't say so!"

"Yes, I used it to pay for a cartload of firewood I bought from a
peasant."

And Eugene Mihailovich related with great indignation to the company
present--his wife adding more details to his narrative--how his wife had
been cheated by two unscrupulous schoolboys.

"Well, and now let us sit down to work," he said, taking his place at
one of the whist-tables when his turn came, and beginning to shuffle the
cards.

VI

EUGENE MIHAILOVICH had actually used the coupon to buy firewood from the
peasant Ivan Mironov, who had thought of setting up in business on the
seventeen roubles he possessed. He hoped in this way to earn another
eight roubles, and with the twenty-five roubles thus amassed he intended
to buy a good strong horse, which he would want in the spring for work
in the fields and for driving on the roads, as his old horse was almost
played out.

Ivan Mironov's commercial method consisted in buying from the stores a
cord of wood and dividing it into five cartloads, and then driving about
the town, selling each of these at the price the stores charged for
a quarter of a cord. That unfortunate day Ivan Mironov drove out very
early with half a cartload, which he soon sold. He loaded up again with
another cartload which he hoped to sell, but he looked in vain for