banished the farm in order to duly appreciate his wisdom. Without our banishment this well of wisdom would have been forever sealed. Ha! ha! and so I am the principal piece of furniture,” laughed old Loyka. “And, pray, what have you got to say of my aged wife yonder.”
“She requites you for your young days of courtship. Then you were always following after her, now she follows after you. But do you know what is a sad thing.”
“Well, what,” enquired old Loyka.
“That it is only grey-headed eld which tramps it to that dog kennel which you call a pension house. It were better to begin more timely when a man is yet stout enough to bear his ills. But for an old man to take up his wallet and go a-begging—fie!”
“How am I going a-begging?” retorted Loyka, and here he felt as though he were dying of impatience to hear a little more.
“You? God protect you? In your family begging and being pensioned off are one and the same thing. And in order that I may prove to you that even without begging you can steal a march upon your son, intercede with him in my behoof that I may not be expelled from those two chambers by the coach-house. For, if not, you will not have a single living soul in whom to confide your sorrows.”
“So, then, you think, Vena, I shall want someone in whom to confide my sorrows.”
V
