"Then you may order the captain of the guard to be as alert as possible."
"I will."
The major blinked his eyes, and went into a brown study.
"Well, tell the boys to get their supper."
"That's what they're doing now."
"Good! then you may go. Well,"[23] continued the major with a conciliating smile, and taking up the thread of the conversation that we had dropped, "we were reckoning what an officer needed: let us finish the calculation."
"We need one uniform and trousers, don't we?"[24]
"Yes. That, let us suppose would amount to fifty rubles every two years; say, twenty-five rubles a year for dress. Then for eating we need every day at least forty kopeks, don't we?[25]"
"Yes, certainly as much as that."
"Well, I'll call it so. Now, for a horse and saddle for remount, thirty rubles; that's all. Twenty-five and a hundred and twenty and thirty make a hundred and seventy-five rubles. All the rest stands for luxuries,—for tea and for sugar and for tobacco,—twenty rubles. Will you look it over?... It's right, isn't it, Nikoláï Feódoruitch?"