"H'm! Are you sure of that?"
"Quite sure, sir. There was a lamp right against his window, and every night he sat up till sunrise. Well, I did not light that lamp because enough light streamed from his window. So this one lamp was a net profit to me: he was a very useful man."
So, talking quietly to this one and that, the writer reached the cemetery, and it came to pass that he had to make a speech about himself, because all those who accompanied him on that day had toothache. This happened in Russia, and there people always have an ache of one sort or another.
He made a rather good speech. One paper went so far as to praise it in the following terms:—
"One of the followers, who from his appearance we judged to be an actor, made a warm and touching oration over the grave, albeit from our point of view he no doubt over-estimated and exaggerated the rather modest merits of the deceased. He was a writer of the old school who made no effort to rid himself of its defects—the naïve didactism, namely, and the over-insistence on the so-called civic duties—which to us nowadays have become so tiresome. Nevertheless, the speech was delivered with a feeling of unquestionable love for the written word." When the speech had been duly made the writer lay down in the coffin and thought, quite satisfied with himself:
"There, we are ready now. Everything has gone well and with dignity."
At this point he became quite dead. Thus should one's calling be respected, even though it be literature.
[THE MAN WITH A NATIONAL FACE]
Once upon a time there was a gentleman who had lived more than half his life, when he suddenly felt that something was lacking in him. He was very much alarmed.