ave caught the young Count; he is a fat morsel, a rich
fellow, a young man of old family; don't let him out of the cage without
getting three hundred ducats for him; and when you have them, give some
three-pence for my monastery and for me, for I always pray for your soul.
As I am a Bernardine, I am very anxious about your soul! Death pulls even
staff-officers by the ears. Baka162 wrote well--that Death seizes on
sinners at dinners, and on silken frocks she often knocks, and monks'
cowls she slashes like satin sashes, and the curb of girls she raps like
shoulder-straps. Mother Death, says Baka, like an onion, brings tears from
the dears she embraces, and fondles alike both the baby that drowses and
the rake that carouses! Ah! ah! Major, to-day we live and to-morrow we
rot; that only is ours which to-day we eat and drink! Judge, doesn't it
seem to you time for breakfast? I take my seat at the table, and beg all
to be seated with me. Major, how about some stewed beef and gravy?
Lieutenant, what's your idea? Should you like a bowl of good punch?"

"That's a fact, Father," said two officers; "it's time to be eating, and
to drink the Judge's health!"

The household, gazing at Robak, marvelled whence he had got such a bearing
and such jollity. The Judge at once repeated the orders to the cook; they
brought in a bowl, sugar, bottles, and stewed beef. Plut and Rykov set to
work briskly; and so greedily did they feed and so copiously did they
drink, that in a half hour they had eaten twenty-three plates of the
stewed beef and emptied an enormous half bowl of punch.

So the Major, full and merry, lolled in his chair, took out his pipe,
lighted it with a bank note, and, wiping the breakfast from his lips with
the end of a napkin, turned his laughing eyes on the women, and said:--

"Fair ladies, I like you as dessert! By my major's epaulets, when a man
has eaten breakfast, the best relish after the stewed beef is chatting
with such fair ladies as you fair ladies! I tell you what: let's have a
game of cards, of vingt et un or whist; or shall we start a mazurka? Hey,
in the name of three hundred devils, why, I am the best dancer of the
mazurka in the whole yager regiment!"

Thereupon he leaned forward closer to the ladies, and puffed out smoke and
compliments by turns.

"Let's dance!" cried Robak. "When I have finished my bottle, though a
monk, I occasionally tuck up my gown, and dance a bit of a mazurka! But
you see, Major, we