intimate terms in five minutes. The Count seemed to like Ilyín very much; he looked smilingly at him and teased him about his youthfulness.
“There’s an Uhlan of the true sort!” said he. “What moustaches—dear me, what moustaches!”
Even what little fluff there was on Ilyín’s lip was quite white.
“I suppose you are going to play?” said the Count: “Well, I wish you luck, Ilyín! I should think you are a master at it,” he added, with a smile.
“Yes, they mean to start,” said Loúhnof, tearing open a pack of cards, “and you, Count, won’t you join us?”
“No, not today. I should clear you all out if I did. When I begin ‘cornering’ in earnest the bank begins to crack! But I have nothing to play with—I was cleaned out at a station near Volotchók. I met some infantry fellow there with rings on his fingers—some sharper, I should think—and he plucked me clean.”
“Why, how long were you at that station?” asked Ilyín.
“I sat there for twenty-two hours. I shall remember that cursed station! And the superintendent won’t forget me either …”
“How’s that?”
“I drive up, you know; out rushes the superintendent, with a regular brigand’s rascally phiz. ‘No horses,’ says he. Now, I must tell you, I make it a rule: if there are no horses I don’t take off my cloak, but go into the superintendent’s own room—not into the public room, but into his private room—and I have all the doors and windows opened, on the ground that it’s smoky. Well, that’s just what I did there. And you remember what frosts we had last week? Twenty degrees! The superintendent began to reason, I punched his head. There was an old