“Again! You can’t get along without the devil! It’s a sin! by Heaven, it’s a sin, Ivan Nikiforovitch!”
“What do you mean, Ivan Ivanovitch, by offering the deuce knows what kind of a sow for my gun?”
“Why is she ‘the deuce knows what,’ Ivan Nikiforovitch?”
“Why? You can judge for yourself perfectly well; here’s the gun, a known thing; but the deuce knows what that sow is like! If it had not been you who said it, Ivan Ivanovitch, I might have put an insulting construction on it.”
“What defect have you observed in the sow?”
“For what do you take me—for a sow?”
“Sit down, sit down! I won’t—No matter about your gun; let it rot and rust where it stands in the corner of the storeroom. I don’t want to say anything more about it!”
After this a pause ensued.
“They say,” began Ivan Ivanovitch, “that three kings have declared war against our Tzar.”
“Yes, Peter Feodorovitch told me so. What sort of war is this, and why is it?”