"I don't know the name of your son's consort; but I do know that she is the daughter of a Samoyede chief. The Governor of Siberia has sent me regular reports about your son Casimir every year. I expressly asked him to do so. One year your son spent in the gold-mines of the Urals, and then, because of his good conduct, and also out of regard to his father, he was permitted to devote himself to agriculture on the banks of the Jenisei. There he fell in with a Samoyede stock, good, honest, hospitable people. The chief's daughter fell in love with him, and they gave her to him. Casimir built himself a jurta, as they call their huts, reared reindeer, ploughed up a bit of land, and settled down there with his Siberian rose, and in the mean time two children have been born to them."
"I know—I know it right well," said the Starosta, whose long-repressed laughter now burst forth, "and he has sent his father their portraits."
"His father? Their portraits?"
"And two pretty little fair-haired chaps, too!"
"Fair-haired! Has he got fair-haired children, too?"
"One of them has been christened Maximilian, after his maternal grandfather; the other is called Stanislaus."
"I had no idea there were ancestral Maximilians and Stanislauses among the Samoyedes."
But now the Starosta began to grow really angry. He struck the table viciously with his fist.
"In the name of St. Procopius, what do you mean? We have had about enough of this Siberian joke and these Samoyede princes. You must not jest so with me. D'ye hear?"
"And I protest by St. Michael that I am not jesting at all, but that you are jesting with me; and your jesting is very much out of place, and out of season, too. D'ye hear?"