and the gusts of wind, the faraway monotonous grumbling of the thunder, the nightingales, and the leisurely, carelessly malicious lisping of Akim and his squeaking voice, all irritated him.
“You ought to buy yourself at least a belt, Akimushka,” said the baker with affected simplicity, as he lighted a cigarette. He kept casting glances at Kuzma, by way of inviting him to listen to Akim.
“Just you wait,” replied Akim in an absentminded, scoffing tone, as he poured the fluid porridge from the boiling kettle into a cup. “When we’ve lived here with the proprietor through the summer, I’ll buy you boots with a squeak in them.”
“ ‘With a skvvvveak’! Well, I’m not asking you to do anything of the sort.”
“You’re wearing leg-wrappers now.” And Akim began anxiously to take a test sip of the porridge from the spoon.
The baker was disconcerted, and heaved a sigh: “Why should the likes of us wear boots?”
“Oh, stop that,” said Kuzma. “You had better tell me whether you have this porridge day in and day out, forever and ever, as I think you do.”
“Well, and what would you like—fish, and ham?” inquired Akim, without turning round, as he licked the spoon. “That really wouldn’t be so bad: a dram of vodka, about three pounds of sturgeon, a knuckle of ham, a little glass of fruit cordial. But this isn’t porridge: it’s called thin gruel. The porridge is for the appetizer snack.”
“But do you make cabbage soup, or any other sort of soup?”
“We have had that, brother—cabbage soup; and what soup it was! If you were to spill it on the dog his hair would peel off!”