“Ah, ha!”
“But my father has much money. Why do you make such a fuss about it?”
Yakov Tarasovich was taken aback. He looked into the youth’s face with contempt and asked him in a faint voice:
“And you speak like this?”
“I? Who then?”
“You lie! It is your young foolishness that speaks. Yes! And my old foolishness—brought to test a million times by life—says that you are a young dog as yet, and it is too early for you to bark in a basso.”
Foma hearing this, had often been quite provoked by his godfather’s too picturesque language.
Mayakin always spoke to him more roughly than his father, but now the youth felt very much offended by the old man and said to him reservedly, but firmly:
“You had better not abuse me without reflection, for I am no longer a small child.”
“Come, come!” exclaimed Mayakin, mockingly lifting his eyebrows and squinting.