"If you have something to laugh at, tell it me," he said, tired of seeing the stranger enjoy a joke he knew nothing of.
"Laugh!" he cried. "Why, I could laugh for a week, just to see Ruvno again. And you not knowing me, after all the wallopings you've given me, too."
This made Father Constantine think. He did thrash a Cossack once, but it was in 1863, and this man was young.
"Not in 1863?" he asked doubtfully.
"No--more like '93," and the Cossack laughed again.
"I've only walloped village boys lately. And we'd no Cossacks in these parts before the war."
"How about Ian?" he asked.
"Count Ian, you mean," said the Father with dignity. He hated these democratic ways the Russian soldiers had of saying "thee" and "thou" to everybody.
"And Roman Skarbek," he went on, unabashed.
"Skarbek?"