."
"Then I will tell the waiter, honey, to carry my friend some
sweets and apples?" pestered Vera.
Such importunity entered the round of their tacit duties. There
even existed among the girls some captious, childish, strange
rivalry as to the ability to "ease a guest of his money"--strange
enough because they did not derive any profit out of this, unless,
indeed, a certain affection from the housekeeper or a word of
approbation from the proprietress. But in their petty, monotonous,
habitually frivolous life there was, in general, a great deal of
semi-puerile, semi-hysterical play.
Simeon brought a coffee pot, cups, a squatty bottle of
Benedictine, fruits and bon-bons in glass vases, and gaily and
easily began making the corks of the beer and wine pop.
"But why don't you drink?" Yarchenko turned to the reporter
Platonov. "Allow me ... I do not mistake? Sergei Ivanovich, I
believe?"
"Right."
"Allow me to offer you a cup of coffee, Sergei Ivanovich. It's
refreshing. Or perhaps, let's drink this same dubious Lafitte?"
"No, you really must allow me to refuse.
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