h. You seem
to be a good man, and, though I don't remember you, still I will go
with you into the public-house and drink to your success and future
prospects with the greatest pleasure."

"You seem always the same ... Are you always joking?"

"What else can one do, living among you unfortunate men?"

They went. Sometimes the Captain's former customer, uplifted and
unsettled by the entertainment, returned to the dosshouse, and on the
following morning they would again begin treating each other till the
Captain's companion would wake up to realise that he had spent all his
money in drink.

"Your honour, do you see that I have again fallen into your hands?
What shall we do now?"

"The position, no doubt, is not a very good one, but still you need not
trouble about it," reasoned the Captain. "You must, my friend, treat
everything indifferently, without spoiling yourself by philosophy, and
without asking yourself any question. To philosophise is always
foolish; to philosophise with a drunken headache, ineffably so.
Drunken headaches require vodki and not the remorse of conscience or
gnashing of teeth ... save your teeth, or else you will not be able to
protect yourself. Here are twenty kopecks. Go and buy a bottle of
vodki for five kopecks, hot tripe or lungs, one pound of bread and two
cucumbers. When we have lived off our drunken headache we will think
of the condition of affairs ..."

As a rule the consideration of the "condition of affairs" lasted some
two or three days, and only when the Captain had not a farthing left of
the three roubles or five roubles given him by his grateful customer
did he say:

"You came! Do you see? Now that we have drunk everything with you,
you fool, try again to regain the path of virtue and soberness. It has
been truly said that if you do not sin, you will not repent, and, if
you do not repent, you shall not be saved. We have done the first, and
to repent is useless. Let us make direct for salvation. Go to the
river and work, and if you think you cannot control yourself, tell the
contractor, your employer, to keep your money, or else give it to me.
When you get sufficient capital, I will get you a pair of trousers and
other things necessary to make you seem a respectable and hard-working
man, persecuted by fate. With decent-looking trousers you can go far.
Now then, be off!"

Then the client would go to the river to work as a porter, smiling the
while over the Capt