Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/296

280 He did. It was beautiful; he had never tasted better.

"A drop more won't hurt."

He drank and drank until he became so drunk that he was unable to leave his place, but fell fast asleep by the side of the cask. The watchman meanwhile had long since noticed him.

"Ah! my friend," he thought, "you are caught now! This is the end of your amusements in this world; you will soon be sitting in Siberia!"

He approached Senka the Little and shaved off half of his beard, so that in case the thief left the place while he went to tell the authorities there would be something to recognize him by.

"I shall go now and tell them."

By the time the watchman arrived at the palace morning began to dawn, and Senka awoke and recovered from his fit of intoxication, and pulled his beard as he yawned, when he suddenly felt that half of it was gone. "What was he to do?" he thought and thought.

At last an idea struck him. He got up, and went along the high road, and commenced pulling every man he met by the beard until he tore half of it off, so that no one could possibly recognize the thief! In this way Senka got out of his difficulty. He let his beard grow again, and began living happily, stealing right and left. He would have lived even longer, if he had not been caught the other day and hung.