All the
employees of pawnshops and loan offices, secret and manifest
usurers, and old-clo'-men were on terms of the closest friendship
with him.
But if for certain reasons he could not resort to them, then even
here Soloviev remained at the height of his resourcefulness. At
the head of a knot of impoverished friends, and weighed down with
his usual business responsibility, he would at times be illumined
by an inner inspiration; make at a distance, across the street, a
mysterious sign to a Tartar passing with his bundle behind his
shoulders, and for a few seconds would disappear with him into the
nearest gates. He would quickly return without his everyday coat,
only in his blouse with the skirts outside, belted with a thin
cord; or, in winter, without his overcoat, in the thinnest of
small suits; or instead of the new, just purchased uniform cap--in
a tiny jockey cap, holding by a miracle on the crown of his head.
Everybody loved him: comrades, servants, women, children. And all
were familiar with him. He enjoyed especial good-will from his
bosom cronies, the Tartars, who, apparently, deemed him a little
innocent.
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