between his teeth, again began making cigarettes. But the dregs of tobacco-dust that he could extract from his pouch being insufficient, he asked S⸺ to favour him with the loan of a cigarette . We long continued among ourselves that monotonous military chatter familiar to all who have been on campaign. We complained, ever in the same terms, of the tediousness and duration of the expedition; discussed our commanders in the same old way; and, just as often before, we praised one comrade, pitied another, were astonished that So-and-so won so much, and that So-and-so lost so much at cards, and so on, and so on.
“Our Adjutant has got himself into a mess, and no mistake,” said Lieutenant-Captain S⸺. “He always used to win when he was on the staff—whoever he sat down with he’d pluck clean—but now these last two months he does nothing but lose. He has not hit it off this campaign! I should think he’s lost 2,000 rubles in money, and things for another 500: the carpet he won of Mukhin, Nikitin’s pistols, the gold watch from Sada’s that Vorontsov gave him—have all gone.”