“Don’t play the fool!” said Denísov, coughing angrily. “Why didn’t you bwing the first one?”

Tíkhon scratched his back with one hand and his head with the other, then suddenly his whole face expanded into a beaming, foolish grin, disclosing a gap where he had lost a tooth (that was why he was called Shcherbáty⁠—the gap-toothed). Denísov smiled, and Pétya burst into a peal of merry laughter in which Tíkhon himself joined.

“Oh, but he was a regular good-for-nothing,” said Tíkhon. “The clothes on him⁠—poor stuff! How could I bring him? And so rude, your honor! Why, he says: ‘I’m a general’s son myself, I won’t go!’ he says.”

“You are a bwute!” said Denísov. “I wanted to question⁠ ⁠…”