“Where’s the honour of it if you have nothing to eat?” said the contractor, laughing disdainfully and addressing the commissary officer, who also laughed. “Wind up and let’s have the tune from Lucia ,” he said, pointing to the music-box; “I like it.”

“What sort of a fellow is that Vasíly Miháylovitch?” asked Volódya when, in the dusk of the evening, he and his brother had left the shed and were driving to Sevastopol.

“So-so, only terribly stingy. But that contractor, I can’t bear to look at.⁠ ⁠… I’ll give him a thrashing some day.”