"Well, what's the good of it?" he would at times say sombrely to
his colleagues by profession. "What if a whippersnapper like that
comes, and runs right up nose to nose against his superiors?
Smash, and they've closed up the establishment! There, like
Lupendikha's three years back. Of course, it's nothing that they
closed it up--she transferred it in another name right off; and
when they sentenced her to sit in jail for a year and a half, why,
it came to a pre-etty penny for her. She had to shell out four
hundred for Kerbesh alone ... And then it also happens: a little
pig of that kind will cook up some sort of disease for himself and
start in whining: 'Oh, papa! Oh, mamma! I am dying!' 'Tell me, you
skunk, where you got it?' 'There and there ...' Well, and so they
haul you over the coals again; judge me, thou unrighteous judge!"
"Pass on, pass on," said he to the cadets sternly.
The cadets entered, blinking from the bright light. Petrov, who
had been drinking to get up courage, swayed and was pale. They sat
down beneath the picture of the Feast of the Russian Noblemen, and
immediately two of the young ladies--Verka and Tamara--joined them
on both sides.
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