"What is the meaning of this?" I asked, with involuntary amazement.

"This? This is my squad, my army; all beggars, God's people, my friends!
Each one of them, thanks to your kindness, has quaffed a cup of liquor:
and now we are all rejoicing and making merry!... Uncle! 'Tis only with
the beggars and God's poor that one can live in the world, you know ...
by God, that's so!"

I made him no reply ... but this time he seemed to me such a
good-natured soul, his face expressed such childlike ingenuousness ... a
light suddenly seemed to dawn upon me, and there came a prick at my
heart....

"Get into the calash with me," I said to him.

He was amazed....

"What? Get into the calash?"

"Get in, get in!" I repeated. "I want to make thee a proposition. Get
in!... Drive on with me."

"Well, you command."--He got in.--"Come, and as for you, my dear
friends, respected comrades," he added to the beggars: "good-bye! Until
we meet again!"--Mísha took off his kazák cap and made a low bow.--The
beggars all seemed to be dumbfounded.... I ordered the coachman to whip
up the horses, and the calash rolled on.

This is what I wished to propose to Mísha: the idea had suddenly