“She goes well, but that idiot of a doctor, deuce take him, has given her some balls which have made her sneeze for the last two days.”
“She is a fine beast, a very fine beast. Has your excellency a turn-out to match the horse?”
“Turn-out! but she’s a saddle horse.”
“I know. I put the question, your excellency, to know if you have an equipage worthy of your other horses?”
“No, I have not much in the way of equipages; I must admit that, for some time past, I have been wanting to buy a calash, such as they build now-a-days. I have written about it to my brother who is now at St. Petersburg, but I do not know whether he will be able to send me one.”
“It seems to me, your excellency,” remarked the colonel, “that there are no better calashes than those of Vienna.”
“You are right.” Puff—puff—puff.
“I have an excellent calash, your excellency, a real Viennese calash,” said Tchertokoutski.
“That in which you came?”
“Oh no, I make use of that for ordinary service, but the other is something extraordinary. It is as light as a feather, and if you sit in it, it seems as if your nurse was rocking you in a cradle.”