But why it had been given him he could not at all understand, and therefore he did not experience the least feeling of gratitude.

On the contrary, vague suspicions that the cadet had some evil intentions filled his mind.

What those intentions were he could not decide, but neither could he admit the idea that a stranger would give him a horse worth forty rubles for nothing, just out of kindness; it seemed impossible.

Had he been drunk one might understand it! He might have wished to show off.
But the cadet had been sober, and therefore must have wished to bribe him to do something wrong.

'Eh, humbug!' thought Lukashka.