kin, he announced
boldly:

"I am ready! Let us go!"

Neither of them spoke on their way to the hotel. Foma, seeing that his
godfather had to skip as he went in order to keep up with him, purposely
took longer strides, and the fact that the old man could not keep step
with him supported and strengthened in him the turbulent feeling of
protest which he was by this time scarcely able to master.

"Waiter!" said Mayakin, gently, on entering the hall of the hotel,
and turning toward a remote corner, "let us have a bottle of moorberry
kvass."

"And I want some cognac," ordered Foma.

"So-o! When you have poor cards you had better always play the lowest
trump first!" Mayakin advised him sarcastically.

"You don't know my game!" said Foma, seating himself by the table.

"Really? Come, come! Many play like that."

"How?"

"I mean as you do--boldly, but foolishly."

"I play so that either the head is smashed to pieces, or the wall broken
in half," said Foma, hotly, and struck the table with his fist.

"Haven't you recovered from your drunkenness yet?" asked Mayakin with a
smile.

Foma seated himself more firmly in his chair, and, his face distorted
with wrathful agitation, he said:

"Godfather, you are a sensible man. I respect you for your common
sense."

"Thank you, my son!" and Mayakin bowed, rising slightly, and leaning his
hands against the table.

"Don't mention it. I want to tell you that I am no longer twenty. I am
not a child any longer."

"Of course not!" assented Mayakin. "You've lived a good while, that goes
without saying! If a mosquito had lived as long it might have grown as
big as a hen."

"Stop your joking!" Foma warned him, and he did it so calmly that
Mayakin started back, and the wrinkles on his face quivered with alarm.

"What did you come here for?" asked Foma.

"Ah! you've done some nasty work here. So I want to find out whether
there's much damage in it! You see, I am a relative of yours. And then,
I am the only one you have."

"You are troubling yourself in vain. Do you know, papa, what I'll tell
you? Either give me full freedom, or take all my business into your own
hands. Take everything! Everything--to the last rouble!"

This proposition burst forth from Foma altogether unexpectedly to
himself; he had never before thought of anything like it. But now that
he uttered such words to his godfather it suddenly became clear to him
that if his godfather were to take from him all hi