sit down.

'Good morning. Father Elias Vasilich,' said Eroshka, rising with (or so
it seemed to Olenin) an ironically low bow.

'Good morning. Daddy. So you're here already,' said the cornet, with a
careless nod.

The cornet was a man of about forty, with a grey pointed beard, skinny
and lean, but handsome and very fresh-looking for his age. Having come
to see Olenin he was evidently afraid of being taken for an ordinary
Cossack, and wanted to let Olenin feel his importance from the first.

'That's our Egyptian Nimrod,' he remarked, addressing Olenin and
pointing to the old man with a self-satisfied smile. 'A mighty hunter
before the Lord! He's our foremost man on every hand. You've already
been pleased to get acquainted with him.'

Daddy Eroshka gazed at his feet in their shoes of wet raw hide and
shook his head thoughtfully at the cornet's ability and learning, and
muttered to himself: 'Gyptian Nimvrod! What things he invents!'

'Yes, you see we mean to go hunting,' answered Olenin.

'Yes, sir, exactly,' said the cornet, 'but I have a small business with
you.'

'What do you want?'

'Seeing that you are a gentleman,' began the cornet, 'and as I may
understand myself to be in the rank of an officer too, and therefore we
may always progressively negotiate, as gentlemen do.' (He stopped and
looked with a smile at Olenin and at the old man.) 'But if you have the
desire with my consent, then, as my wife is a foolish woman of our
class, she could not quite comprehend your words of yesterday's date.
Therefore my quarters might be let for six rubles to the Regimental
Adjutant, without the stables; but I can always avert that from myself
free of charge. But, as you desire, therefore I, being myself of an
officer's rank, can come to an agreement with you in everything
personally, as an inhabitant of this district, not according to our
customs, but can maintain the conditions in every way....'

'Speaks clearly!' muttered the old man.

The cornet continued in the same strain for a long time. At last, not
without difficulty, Olenin gathered that the cornet wished to let his
rooms to him, Olenin, for six rubles a month. The latter gladly agreed
to this, and offered his visitor a glass of tea. The cornet declined it.

'According to our silly custom we consider it a sort of sin to drink
out of a "worldly" tumbler,' he said. 'Though, of course, with my
education I may understand, but my wife from her human weakness...'