cards.


VI

EUGENE MIHAILOVICH had actually used the coupon to buy firewood from the
peasant Ivan Mironov, who had thought of setting up in business on the
seventeen roubles he possessed. He hoped in this way to earn another
eight roubles, and with the twenty-five roubles thus amassed he intended
to buy a good strong horse, which he would want in the spring for work
in the fields and for driving on the roads, as his old horse was almost
played out.

Ivan Mironov's commercial method consisted in buying from the stores a
cord of wood and dividing it into five cartloads, and then driving about
the town, selling each of these at the price the stores charged for
a quarter of a cord. That unfortunate day Ivan Mironov drove out very
early with half a cartload, which he soon sold. He loaded up again with
another cartload which he hoped to sell, but he looked in vain for a
customer; no one would buy it. It was his bad luck all that day to come
across experienced towns-people, who knew all the tricks of the peasants
in selling firewood, and would not believe that he had actually brought
the wood from the country as he assured them. He got hungry, and felt
cold in his ragged woollen coat. It was nearly below zero when evening
came on; his horse which he had treated without mercy, hoping soon to
sell it to the knacker's yard, refused to move a step. So Ivan Mironov
was quite ready to sell his firewood at a loss when he met Eugene
Mihailovich, who was on his way home from the tobacconist.

"Buy my cartload of firewood, sir. I will give it to you cheap. My poor