The next day they gave me fifteen copecks and sent me to communion. Easter was late. The snow had been melted a long time, the streets were dry, the roadways sent up a cloud of dust, and the day was sunny and cheerful. Near the church was a group of workmen gambling with hucklebones. I decided that there was plenty of time to go to communion, and asked if I might join in.
"The entrance-fee is one copeck," said a pock-marked, ruddy-faced man, proudly.
"I put three on the second pair to the left."
I changed the fifteen-copeck piece and placed my three copecks on the pair of hucklebones. Whoever hit that pair would receive that money, but if he failed to hit them, he had to give me three copecks. I was in luck. Two of them took aim and lost. I had won six copecks from grown-up men. My spirits rose greatly. But one of the players remarked:
"You had better look out for that youngster or he will be running away with his winnings."
This I regarded as an insult, and I said hotly: "Nine copecks on the pair at the extreme left." However, this did not make much impression on the players. Only one lad of my own age cried:
"See how lucky he is, that little devil from the Zvezdrinki; I know him."
A thin workman who smelt like a furrier said maliciously:
"He is a little devil, is he? Goo-oo-ood!"
Taking a sudden aim, he coolly knocked over my stake, and, bending down to me, said:
"Three copecks on the pair to the right!"
"I shall have another three," he said, but he lost.
One could not put money on the same "horse" more than three times running, so I chose other hucklebones and won four more copecks. I had a heap of hucklebones. But when my turn came again, I placed money three times, and lost it all. Simultaneously mass was finished, the bell rang, and the people came out of church.
"Are you married?" inquired the furrier, intending to seize me by the hair; but I eluded him, and overtaking a lad in his Sunday clothes I inquired politely:
"Well, and suppose I have; what then?" he answered, looking at me contemptuously.
I asked him to tell me how people took communion, what words the priest said, and what I ought to have done.
The young fellow shook me roughly and roared out in a terrifying voice: