“Eh!” exclaimed Yakov Tarasovich regretfully, with a shake of the head. “You’ve spoilt the whole mass for me, dear! How could you be so straightforward in your dealings with the man? Psha! The devil drove me to send you there! I should have gone myself. I would have turned him around my finger!”
“Hardly! He says, ‘I am an oak.’”
“An oak? And I am a saw. An oak! An oak is a good tree, but its fruits are good for swine only. So it comes out that an oak is simply a blockhead.”
“But it’s all the same, we have to pay, anyway.”
“Clever people are in no hurry about this; while you are ready to run as fast as you can to pay the money. What a merchant you are!”
Yakov Tarasovich was positively dissatisfied with his godson. He frowned and in an angry manner ordered his daughter, who was silently pouring out tea:
“Push the sugar nearer to me. Don’t you see that I can’t reach it?”
Lubov’s face was pale, her eyes seemed troubled, and her hands moved lazily and awkwardly. Foma looked at her and thought:
“How meek she is in the presence of her father.”
“What did he speak to you about?” asked Mayakin.