councils, local assemblies, Moscow and Petersburg!
'Yes, yes, yes, yes,' put in Golushkin; 'to be sure, to be sure! Our mayor here, for instance, is a perfect ass! A hopeless noodle! I tell him one thing and another . . . but he doesn't understand a word; he's just such another as our governor!'
'Is your governor a fool?' inquired Paklin.
'I tell you he's an ass!'
'Have you ever noticed, does he grunt or snuffle?'
'What?' asked Golushkin in some bewilderment.
'Why, don't you know? In Russia our great civilians grunt; and our great army men talk through their noses; and it's only the very highest dignitaries who both grunt and snuffle at once.'
Golushkin roared with laughter till the tears ran down.
'Yes, yes,' he stuttered, 'he snuffles. . . He's an army man!'
'Ugh, you booby!' Paklin was thinking to himself.
'Everything's rotten with us, go where you will', bawled Golushkin, a little later. 'Everything's rotten, everything!'
'Most honoured Kapiton Andreitch', Paklin
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