“What do you mean, sir?” Pievakin burst out, reddening violently. “How dare you liken me to those fellows? I was serving the Czar while you were still a whippersnapper. I’m a councillor of state, sir. How dare you make these insinuations?”
“I expected as much,” Novikoff answered, nervously polishing his buttons. “Defying one’s superior is of a piece with the views you’re trying to instill into the minds of your scholars.”
“What is of a piece with what? Speak out, sir,” Pievakin shrieked.
“Bridle your temper, sir. I can’t allow that.”
“Then tell me what it’s all about,” the teacher of history and geography said in a queer, half-beseeching, half-threatening voice.
“Well, this morning you were expatiating upon the blessings of a constitutional government. Yes, sir. There are no spies to eavesdrop on one in this building, but it seems you never speak so loud nor with so much gusto as when you get to the subject of constitutions and parliaments and things of that kind.”
“It isn’t true. I merely said a word or two on the various forms of government. It’s practically all in Smirnoff’s Geography.”
“‘Practically’! It’s against the law. I am very sorry, but it becomes my duty to report it to the curator.”
Here Pievakin, losing control of himself, shouted “Spy!” and “Scoundrel!” and darted out of the room.