silk handkerchief was twisted round his immense neck. He was called the
Wild Master. Right opposite him, on a bench under the holy pictures, was
sitting Yashka's rival, the booth-keeper from Zhizdry; he was a short,
stoutly-built man about thirty, pock-marked, and curly-headed, with a
blunt, turn-up nose, lively brown eyes, and a scanty beard. He looked
keenly about him, and, sitting with his hands under him, he kept
carelessly swinging his legs and tapping with his feet, which were
encased in stylish top-boots with a coloured edging. He wore a new thin
coat of grey cloth, with a plush collar, in sharp contrast with the
crimson shirt below, buttoned close across the chest. In the opposite
corner, to the right of the door, a peasant sat at the table in a
narrow, shabby smock-frock, with a huge rent on the shoulder. The
sunlight fell in a narrow, yellowish streak through the dusty panes of
the two small windows, but it seemed as if it struggled in vain with the
habitual darkness of the room; all the objects in it were dimly, as it
were, patchily lighted up. On the other hand, it was almost cool in the
room, and the sense of stifling heat dropped off me like a weary load
directly I crossed the threshold.

My entrance, I could see, was at first somewhat disconcerting to Nikolai
Ivanitch's customers; but observing that he greeted me as a friend, they
were reassured, and took no more notice of me. I asked for some beer and
sat down in the corner, near the peasant in the ragged smock.

'Well, well,' piped the Gabbler, suddenly draining a glass of spirits at
one gulp, and accompanying his exclamation with the strange
gesticulations, without which he seemed unable to utter a single word;
'what are we waiting for? If we're going to begin, then begin. Hey,
Yasha?'