“May I die, Theodor Maksimov, if a drop has passed my lips; I don’t myself know what happened to me,” answered Velenchuk. “Much cause I had for revelling,” he muttered.

“Just so; but we have to answer to the authorities because of the likes of you, and you continue⁠—it’s quite scandalous!” the eloquent Maksimov concluded in a calmer tone.

“It’s quite wonderful, lads,” Velenchuk went on after a moment’s silence, scratching his head and addressing no one in particular; “really quite wonderful, lads! Here have I been serving for the last sixteen years, and such a thing never happened to me. When we were ordered to appear for muster I was all right, but at the ‘park,’ there it suddenly clutches hold of me, and clutches and clutches, and down it throws me, down on the ground and no more ado⁠—and I did not myself know how I fell asleep, lads! That must have been the trances,” he concluded.