“Wonderful! you're quite another man!”
“That's hardly surprising! nine years, sir!”
“No, no, no! years have nothing to do with it! it's not in appearance you are so changed: it's something else!”
“Well, sir, the nine years might account for anything.”
“Perhaps it's only since March, eh?”
“Ha-ha! you are playful, sir,” said Pavel Pavlovitch, laughing slyly. “But, if I may ask it, wherein am I so changed?”
“Oh—why, you used to be such a staid, sober, correct Pavel Pavlovitch; such a wise Pavel Pavlovitch; and now you're a good-for-nothing sort of Pavel Pavlovitch.”
Velchaninoff was in that state of irritation when the steadiest, gravest people will sometimes say rather more than they mean.
“Good-for-nothing, am I? and wise no longer, I suppose, eh?” chuckled Pavel Pavlovitch, with disagreeable satisfaction.
“Wise, indeed! My dear sir, I'm afraid you are not sober,” replied Velchaninoff; and added to himself, “I am pretty fairly insolent myself, but I can't compare with this little cad! And what on earth is the fellow driving at?”