His extraordinary cheerfulness of course, at once aroused indignation in some of our party; it was almost taken as an insult.

“He is setting up a howl!” a convict said reproachfully, though it was no concern of his.

“The wolf has only one note and that you’ve cribbed, you Tula fellow!” observed another of the gloomy ones, with a Little Russian accent.

“I may be a Tula man,” Skuratov retorted promptly, “but you choke yourselves with dumplings in Poltava.”

“Lie away! What do you eat? Used to ladle out cabbage soup with a shoe.”

“And now it might be the devil feeding us with cannon balls,” added a third.