agonies (I remember to this day how they moaned in the cage at
night); those that recovered we sold, and swore with the utmost
effrontery that they were all cocks. On one occasion at the market
I had only one starling left, which I had offered to purchasers in
vain, till at last I sold it for a farthing. "Anyway, it's better
than nothing," I said to comfort myself, as I put the farthing in
my pocket, and from that day the street urchins and the schoolboys
called after me: "Better-than-nothing"; and to this day the street
boys and the shopkeepers mock at me with the nickname, though no
one remembers how it arose.

Tcheprakov was not of robust constitution: he was narrow-chested,
round-shouldered, and long-legged. He wore a silk cord for a tie,
had no trace of a waistcoat, and his boots were worse than mine,
with the heels trodden down on one side. He stared, hardly even
blinking, with a strained expression, as though he were just going
to catch something, and he was always in a fuss.

"You wait a minute," he would say fussily. "You listen. . . .
Whatever was I talking about?"

We got into conversation. I learned that the estate on which I now
was had until recently been the property of the Tcheprakovs, and
had only the autumn before passed into the possession of Dolzhikov,
who considered it more profitable to put his money into land than
to keep it in notes, and had already bought up three good-sized
mortgaged estates in our neighbourhood. At the sale Tcheprakov's
mother had reserved for herself the right to live for the next two
years in one of the lodges at the side, and had obtained a post for
her son in the office.