But the sharp eyes of Ivan read him. “Hah! Bring out the caviar and the champagne, comrade. What nine-tenths of the world eats always is too poor for the rich American to eat once!”
“Is it!” said Drexel. He pulled his chair forward, seized a chunk of the sausage and a slab of the black bread, and filled his mouth with a huge bite from each.
Ivan clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s right!” said he, through his gag of bread and meat. “Either I like a man, or I want to fight him. Come—let’s be friends while we’re together!”
Drexel smiled amusedly at the bristling, excited little fellow, and took the outstretched hand. “All right. Since you know who I am, you might tell me who you are.”
“You already know we’re revolutionists,” said Ivan in his rapid, choppy way. “We’re fighters for freedom—hey, comrade? Down with Autocracy!—on come that glorious day when there’ll be a chance for every man! Hey, comrade?”
Nicolai nodded.
“But,” said Drexel, “that doesn’t tell me who you are personally.”
“Ah, you want to be introduced!” Ivan sprang up, a hunk of bread in one hand and of sausage in the other, and his little eyes gleamed with a wild, humorous twinkle. “Allow me to present myself”—he bowed low, the hand with the sausage to his heart—“Ivan, the son of I don’t know who, cradled in the gutter, rocked to sleep on the toe of a policeman’s boot, schooled with the dogs, my income the luxurious sum of 60 kopeks a day drawn from my stock in a lace factory. Glad to meet me, hey?”
He grinned lopsidedly at Drexel. “That’s me,” he nodded. “But with Nicolai”—his sausaged hand made a wave toward his comrade—“it’s another story. He’s educated—he was rich—he—but tell him, comrade.”
“Do,” urged Drexel.