FOOTNOTES:
[33] Evidently, an Imperial Messenger.
[34] Apparently, a slate. The point is, that Russians still perform all their calculations on the ancient abacus, with marvellous rapidity, and look upon pen-and-paper or slate-and-pencil as a slow, cumbrous process.
[35] By this twist of pronunciation the word becomes "storm-meter."
[36] The North Sea. The Mediterranean, literally translated, is "Sredizemnoe"—Midland. Therefore the old gunsmith twists this into "Tverdezemnoe."
[37] The old gunsmith uses a word which sounds fairly right, but means "a disturber."
[38] By substituting an l for a d the old gunsmith turns "under-skipper" into "half-skipper."
XVII
Their wager began on the Dryland Sea, and they drank until they came to Dunamund on the Gulf of Riga, but they always kept even, and did not yield to each other; and they kept so accurately even that when one of them, gazing at the sea, beheld an imp crawling out of the water, the same thing instantly revealed itself to the other. Only, the half-skipper beheld a red-headed imp, whereas the left-handed man declared that he was as swarthy as a Moor.