Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It had been the cause of serious disaster to the porter in the first instance, it had next represented to Fischelowitz a dead loss in money of fifty marks, it had become a thorn in the side to Akulina, it had led to one of the most violent quarrels she had ever engaged in with her husband, its limp and broken form had cost much broken crockery and some broken furniture to the host of the "Green Wreath Inn," had been the cause of several ponderous blows dealt and received by Dumnoff, had produced the violent fall, upon a hard board floor, of a porter and two policemen and had ultimately brought the Count to prison for the night.
There was no time, however, to discuss the question. Dumnoff had quietly submitted his two huge fists to the handcuffs and a second pair was produced, to fit the Count. At this indignity he drew himself up proudly. "Have I resisted the authority, or attempted to run away?" he inquired with flashing eyes. The policeman had nothing to say to this very just question.
"What is this row?" inquired the policeman in his official voice, as he marched into the room. The man who was wrestling with Dumnoff was a German and a soldier.
The porter whom Dumnoff had felled, and who was not altogether stunned, was kicking violently in the attempt to gain his feet among the fallen chairs, a dozen people had come in from the street at the noise of the fight and stood near the door, phlegmatically watching the proceedings, and the poor old woman from the country, who had been supping in the corner, had got her basket on her knees, holding its handle tightly in one hand and with the other grasping her half-finished glass of beer, in terror lest some accident should cause the precious liquid to be spilled, but not calm enough to put it in a place of safety by the simple process of swallowing.
On the opposite side of the room, also before small black tables, sit two men, to wit, Victor Ivanowitch Dumnoff and the Count. It is their business to shape the tobacco and to insert it into the shells, a process performed by rolling the cut leaf into a cylinder in a tongue-shaped piece of parchment, which, when ready, has the form of a pencil, and is slipped into the shell.
And then I promised that to-morrow I would pay the money, and I made Fischelowitz give it to me in a piece of newspaper, and there it is." "What a terrible smash there must have been in the shop!" said Dumnoff. "I would like to have seen the lady's face."
"And no one ever told me " He passed his hand over his eyes. "Tell me" Dumnoff began in the tone of jocular familiarity which he considered confidential "tell me the whole thing is just a joke of yours to amuse us all, is it not? You do not really believe that you are a count, any more than I really believe that you are mad, you know.
He was gone in a moment. Dumnoff stared at the door through which he had disappeared. "After all," he muttered, discontentedly, "he could not have taken it by force. I wonder why I was such a fool as to give it to him!"
Dumnoff stretched his heavy limbs on the wooden pallet, rolled his great head once or twice from side to side until his fur-like hair made something like a cushion and then, in the course of three minutes, fell fast asleep. The Count sat upright in his place, drumming with his fingers upon one knee. "It is a wonder that I am not mad," he said to himself.
"I should not have thought that you needed anything more than a cigarette to remind you of the place," remarked Dumnoff. The Count smiled faintly, for, considering Dumnoff's natural dulness, the remark had a savour of wit in it. "That is true," he said. "But there are other things which could remind me even more forcibly of my exile." "Well, what is it?
Word Of The Day