yellow teeth. His cap was a regular driver’s cap, perfectly new, but his greatcoat was shabby, smeared with tar, and torn about the shoulders and skirts. It did not cover his knees, and his coarse, hempen undergarment, which was stuffed into his huge, felt boots. He was bent and wrinkled, his face quivering, and his knees trembling. He bustled about the sledge, apparently trying to get warm.
“Why, Mitritch, have a drop; it would warm you finely,” the counsellor said to him.
Mitritch gave a shrug. He straightened the breech on his horse, set the yoke right, and came up to me.
“Well, sir,” said he, taking his cap off his grey hair, and bowing low, “we’ve been lost all night along with you, and looking for the road; you might treat me to a glass. Surely, your excellency! Else I’ve nothing to warm me up,” he added with a deprecating smile.
I gave him twenty-five kopecks. The innkeeper brought out a glass, and handed it to the old man. He took off his glove with the whip, and put his black, horny little hand, blue with cold, to the glass; but his thumb was not under his control; he could not hold the glass, and let it drop, spilling the vodka in the snow.
All the drivers laughed.
“I say, Mitritch is so frozen, he can’t hold the vodka.”
But Mitritch was greatly mortified at having spilt the drink.
They poured him out another glass, however, and put it to his lips. He became more cheerful at once, ran into the inn, lighted a pipe, began grinning, showing his decayed, yellow teeth, and at every word he uttered an oath. After drinking a last glass, the drivers got into their sledges, and we drove on.