the while.

Only one of the men was dissatisfied--the last one to come up.

"Your soup is dear," said he.

"Dear! What do you mean?" said the woman. "How much would you pay for
such soup in Yalta, and with beef at fivepence a pound, too?"

"In Yalta they give one soup."

"And here!"

"Here ... as God wills ... something...." The mouzhik slammed the
door.

"There's a man," said my hostess, but she wasn't enraged. Had she
not just sold the family's soup for eighteenpence, and made tenpence
profit on it, and wouldn't her husband be pleasantly surprised when he
saw there were three shillings more on the counter than usual? It was
not often that such custom had come to her.

The boy explained the reason to her in a whisper: "He has a light
hand."

"Very like," said she, looking at me with new interest.

"What do you mean?" I asked the boy.

"Why, don't you know?" said he wonderingly. "Wherever you go you bring
good fortune. After I met you on the road I immediately began to
find wood much more plentifully. When I came in I learned how to buy
pictures. Then mother said she would let me go with you to see the
castle. Then, not only are you a good customer staying the night, but
after you came all this crowd of customers. Generally we have nobody
at all...."

"And I met this wonderful boy," thought I. "I should like to carry him
away. He is like something in myself. He also had the light hand,
but what a testimony he gave the tramp! Wherever he goes he brings
happiness."

As once I wrote before, "tramps often bring blessings to men: they
have given up the causes of quarrels. Sometimes they are a little
divine. God's grace comes down upon them."

VI

ST. SPIRIDON OF TREMIFOND

The charge for driving on Caucasian roads is a penny per horse per
mile, so if you ride ten miles and have two horses you pay the driver
one shilling and eightpence. But if, as generally happens, the
driver's sense of cash has deprived him of a sense of humour, a
conversation of this kind commonly arises.

"One and eightpence. What's this?"

"Ten miles, and two horses at a penny per horse per mile; isn't that
correct?"

"To the devil with your one and eightpence. Give it to the horses;
a penny a mile for a horse, and how about the man, the cart, the
harness? I gave you hay to sit on. See what fine weather it has
been! What beautiful scenery! Yonder is the church ... the wineshop,
the...."

"Hold hard, my good man. The