Again, I see the name, 'Probka Stepan, carpenter, very sober.' That must be the hero of whom the Guards would have been so glad to get hold.

How well I can imagine him tramping the country with an axe in his belt and his boots on his shoulder, and living on a few groats'-worth of bread and dried fish per day, and taking home a couple of half-rouble pieces in his purse, and sewing the notes into his breeches, or stuffing them into his boots! In what manner came you by your end, Probka Stepan?
Did you, for good wages, mount a scaffold around the cupola of the village church, and, climbing thence to the cross above, miss your footing on a beam, and fall headlong with none at hand but Uncle Michai--the good uncle who, scratching the back of his neck, and muttering, 'Ah, Vania, for once you have been too clever!' straightway lashed himself to a rope, and took your place?
'Maksim Teliatnikov, shoemaker.' A shoemaker, indeed?
'As drunk as a shoemaker,' says the proverb.

_I_ know what you were like, my friend.

If you wish, I will tell you your whole history.

You were apprenticed to a German, who fed you and your fellows at a common table, thrashed you with a strap, kept you indoors whenever you had made a mistake, and spoke of you in uncomplimentary terms to his wife and friends.