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By the telegraph apparatus a gentleman with a curly dark head, wearing a reefer coat made of sailcloth, was sitting at a table; he glanced at me morosely from under his brows, but immediately smiled and said: "Hullo, Better-than-nothing!" It was Ivan Tcheprakov, an old schoolfellow of mine, who had been expelled from the second class for smoking.
I waved my hand in despair and went away. I don't remember what happened afterwards, that night and next day. I am told that I walked about the streets bareheaded, staggering, and singing aloud, while a crowd of boys ran after me, shouting: "Better-than-nothing!" If I wanted to order a ring for myself, the inscription I should choose would be: "Nothing passes away."
My great troubles, my patience, have touched people's hearts, and now they don't call me "Better-than-nothing," they don't laugh at me, and when I walk by the shops they don't throw water over me.
"Listen, Better-than-nothing," he said fussily, relighting his cigarette at every instant; there was always a litter where he stood, for he wasted dozens of matches, lighting one cigarette. "Listen, my life now is the nastiest possible.
Or, thinking about something, would answer his thoughts aloud: "Anything may happen! Anything may happen!" When I went home from my work, all the people who were sitting on benches by the gates, all the shopmen and boys and their employers, made sneering and spiteful remarks after me, and this upset me at first and seemed to be simply monstrous. "Better-than-nothing!" I heard on all sides.
"Anyway, it's better than nothing," I said to comfort myself, as I put the farthing in my pocket, and from that day the street urchins and the schoolboys called after me: "Better-than-nothing"; and to this day the street boys and the shopkeepers mock at me with the nickname, though no one remembers how it arose.
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