nk that boasted, not I."

"What sort of drink is it that knows how to boast?" says the giant.

"You shall taste it," says Ivan.

And he made his ancient old sailormen roll a great barrel of wine into
the yard, more than enough for a hundred men, and after that a barrel
of beer that was as big, and then a barrel of mead that was no
smaller.

"Try the taste of that," says Ivan the Ninny.

Well, the giant did not wait to be asked twice. He lifted the barrel
of wine as if it had been a little glass, and emptied it down his
throat. He lifted the barrel of beer as if it had been an acorn, and
emptied it after the wine. Then he lifted the barrel of mead as if it
had been a very small pea, and swallowed every drop of mead that was
in it. And after that he began stamping about and breaking things.
Houses fell to pieces this way and that, and trees were swept flat
like grass. Every step the giant took was followed by the crash of
breaking timbers. Then suddenly he fell flat on his back and slept.
For three days and nights he slept without waking. At last he opened
his eyes.

"Just look about you," says Ivan, "and see the damage that you've
done."

"And did that little drop of drink make me do all that?" says the
giant. "Well, well, I can well understand that a drink like that can
do a bit of bragging. And after that," says he, looking at the wrecks
of houses, and all the broken things scattered about--"after that,"
says he, "you can boast of me for a thousand years, and I'll have
nothing against you."

And he tugged at his great whiskers, and wrinkled his eyes, and went
striding off into the sea.

That is the story about salt, and how it made a rich man of Ivan the
Ninny, and besides, gave him the prettiest wife in the world, and she
a Tzar's daughter.

THE CHRISTENING IN THE VILLAGE.

This chapter is not one of old Peter's stories, though there are,
doubtless, some stories in it. It tells how Vanya and Maroosia drove
to the village to see a new baby.

Old Peter had a sister who lived in the village not so very far away
from the forest. And she had a plump daughter, and the daughter was
called Nastasia, and she was married to a handsome peasant called
Sergie, who had three cows, a lot of pigs, and a flock of fat geese.
And one day when old Peter had gone to the village to buy tobacco and
sugar and sunflower seeds, he came back in the evening, and said to
the children,--

"There's something new in the vi