Very good. I pawned the watch for a hundred rubles, and carried him the
ticket. "You will owe me eighty rubles," says I, "and you had better redeem
the watch."
And so it happened that he still owed me eighty rubles.
After that he began to come to us again every day. I don't know how matters
stood between him and the prince, but at all events he kept coming with him
all the time, or else they would go and play cards up-stairs with Fedotka.
And what queer accounts those three men kept between them! this one would
lend money to the other, the other to the third, yet who it was that owed
the money you never could find out.
And in this way he kept on coming our way for well-nigh two years; only it
was to be plainly seen that he was a changed man, such a devil-may-care
manner he assumed at times. He even went so far at times as to borrow a
ruble of me to pay a hack-driver; and yet he would still play with the
prince for a hundred rubles stake.
He grew gloomy, thin, sallow. As soon as he came he used to order a little
glass of absinthe, take a bite of something, and drink some port wine, and
then he would grow more lively.
He came one time before dinner; it happened to be carnival time, and he
began to play with a hussar.