"For your mother to say, sir."
"Ah, friend, there was a time when I ate snipe. Yes, I did. Once I made a bet with Lieutenant Gremykin that I would eat fifteen snipes one after the other, and what do you think? I won the bet. After that I couldn't look at snipe for a month."
"But you won't refuse to have some now?"
"She wouldn't let me have any. I can't see, though, what makes her so stingy. A snipe is a free bird. You don't have to feed it or look after it. It is self-supporting. She doesn't buy snipes any more than she buys sheep—and yet! The hag knows snipe tastes better than mutton. That's why she won't let me have it. She'd rather let it rot than give it to me. What's ordered for breakfast?"
"Liver, mushrooms in sour cream, and custard."
"Why not send me a custard? Do, brother."
"Well, I'll try hard. Let me tell you, sir. When the brothers sit down to breakfast, you send the village clerk here. He'll fetch you a couple of custards under his coat."
Next day Stepan Vladimirych waited the entire morning for his brothers, but they did not arrive. Finally, about eleven o'clock, the village clerk brought the two promised custards and reported that the brothers had just finished breakfast and were closeted with Arina Petrovna in her bedroom.