e rake a tooth that was cracked (for the
new one was finished and hammered in), "I used to drive a sledge on a
post-road. That was harder, perhaps, than plunging through the snow-storms
on the steppes, for I used to have to drive sometimes by day and sometimes
by night, in the coldest weather; and a wind that is cold enough when you
are standing still, or going along the same road that it is taking, is
fifty times worse when you are driving, as fast as you can, right into the
teeth of it. I used to be glad enough when we reached a post-house and I
could crowd myself up against the great brick stove and try and get some
little feeling into my stiffened fingers. The winter that I drove a sledge
was the worst winter I have ever known. I did not care to try this hard
life another season, so I went to Moscow, and there I became servant to a
young fellow who was the greatest fool I ever knew."

"What did he do?" asked Martin. "Why was he a fool?"

"Oh! he was a boy without sense--the only Russian boy I ever knew who had
no sense at all. If he had belonged to some other nation, I should not
have wondered so much. This fellow was about fifteen or sixteen, and ought
to have known something of the world, but he knew nothing. He was going to
the university when I was with him, but you might have thought he was a
pupil at a mad-house. Whatever came into his cracked brain, came out of
his mouth; and whatever he wanted to do, he did, without waiting to think
whether it would be proper or not. The biggest fool could cheat him; and
when anybody did cheat him, and his friends found it out and wanted to
punish the rascal, this little fool of mine would come, with tears in his
eyes, to beg for the poor wretch, who must feel already such remorse and
such shame at being found out! Bah! I can hardly bear to think of him.
Why, there was once a house afire, in a neighborhood where one of his
friends lived, and what does this young fool do but jump out of his bed,
in the middle of a stormy night, and run to this fire, with nothing but
his night-clothes on!"

"This is very curious," said Martin, laughing. "Nicolai Petrovitch, do you
know----"

"Well, as I was going on to tell you," said the old man, who seemed
thoroughly wrapped up in his subject, "I couldn't stand any such folly as
that, and so I soon left him and went to live with Colonel Rasteryaieff. I
stayed there a long, long time. There I became a gardener, and there I
learned almost a