he could find work. I had already made arrangements with Piotr and
Semyon, that they should take an assistant, and they looked up a mate
for him.

"See that you come. There is a great deal of work there."

"I will come; why should I not come? Do you suppose I like to beg?
I can work."

The peasant declares that he will come, and it seems to me that he is
not deceiving me, and that he intents to come.

On the following day I go to my peasants, and inquire whether that
man has arrived. He has not been there; and in this way several men
deceived me. And those also deceived me who said that they only
required money for a ticket in order to return home, and who chanced
upon me again in the street a week later. Many of these I
recognized, and they recognized me, and sometimes, having forgotten
me, they repeated the same trick on me; and others, on catching sight
of me, beat a retreat. Thus I perceived, that in the ranks of this
class also deceivers existed. But these cheats were very pitiable
creatures: all of them were but half-clad, poverty-stricken, gaunt,
sickly men; they were the very people who really freeze to death, or
hang themselves, as we learn from the newspapers.



CHAPTER II.