or. My regards to
the little political economist Zociya.[5] A-ha! Then you kiss only at
Easter? We shall write that down. Ooh-you, my Tomalachka, my pitty-itty
tootsicums!"

[5] An untranslatable pun on Economochka, a diminutive for
"housekeeper."--Trans.

And so with jests and with pinches he went the round of all the girls
and at last sat down alongside of the fat Katie, who put her fat leg
upon his, leant with her elbow upon her knee, while upon the palm she
laid her chin, and began to watch indifferently and closely the
surveyor rolling a cigarette for himself.

"And how is it that you don't ever get tired of it, Roly-Poly? You're
forever rolling a coffin nail."

Roly-Poly at once commenced to move his eye-brows and the skin of his
scalp and began to speak in verse:

"Dear cigarette, my secret mate,
How can I help loving thee?
Not through mere whim, prompted by fate,
All have started smoking thee."

"Why, Roly-Poly, but you are going to croak soon," said Kitty
indifferently.

"And a very simple matter, that."

"Roly-Poly, say something still funnier, in verse," begged Verka.

And at once, obediently, having placed himself in a funny pose, he
began to declaim:

"Many stars are in the bright sky,
But to count them there's no way.
Yes, the wind whispers there can be,
But there really is no way.
Blossoming now are burdocks,
Now sing out the birds called cocks."

Playing the tom-fool in this manner, Roly-Poly would sit whole evenings
and nights through in the drawing rooms of the establishments. And
through some strange psychic fellow feeling the girls counted him
almost as one of their own; occasionally rendered him little temporary
services and even bought him beer and vodka at their expense.

Some time after Roly-Poly a large company of hairdressers, who were
that day free from work, tumbled in. They were noisy, gay, but even
here, in a brothel, did not cease their petty reckonings and
conversations about closed and open theatrical benefits, about the
bosses, about the wives of the bosses. All these were people corrupt to
a sufficient degree, liars, with great hopes for the future--such as,
for example, entering the service of some countess as a kept lover.
They wanted to utilize to the widest possible extent their rather
hard-earned money, and on that account decided to make a review of
absolutely all the houses of Yama; only Treppel's they could not
re