TWO COUNTRY GENTLEMEN
'Oh, by my order, they're punishing a scamp of a fellow. . . . Do you happen to remember Vasya, who waits at the sideboard?'
'Which Vasya?'
'Why, that waited on us at dinner just now. He with the long whiskers.'
The fiercest indignation could not have stood against the clear mild gaze of Mardary Apollonitch.
'What are you after, young man? what is it?' he said, shaking his head. 'Am I a criminal or something, that you stare at me like that? "Whom he loveth he chasteneth"; you know that.'
A quarter of an hour later I had taken leave of Mardary Apollonitch. As I was driving through the village I caught sight of Vasya. He was walking down the village street, cracking nuts. 'I told the coachman to stop the horses and called him up.
'Well, my boy, so they've been punishing you to-day?' I said to him.
'How did you know?' answered Vasya.
'Your master told me.'
'The master himself?'
'What did he order you to be punished for?'
'Oh, I deserved it, father; I deserved it. They don't punish for trifles among us; that's not the way with us—no, no. Our master's not like that; our master . . . you won't find another master like him in all the province.'
'Drive on!' I said to the coachman. 'There you have it, old Russia!' I mused on my homeward way.
