"N-no." The padre thought this over very carefully. "Lieutenant Tschirikov is bald, quite bald, and very very fat, so he should be quite harmless. The truly dangerous magicians are never bald or fat like Tschirikov."
"Still, I think," said Rain most fearfully, "dear Storm, you'd better make a sacrifice to the Sun. Just hang up something."
Ever obedient to her, Storm jumped up, grabbed the padre's spectacles, ran out, and hung them on a tree as a sacrifice to the Sun. Then he came in again, snatched the letter, and read. It seemed to have no bearing upon his affairs, but still one never knows:
To His Excellency
Colonel The Barin Alexei Alexandrovitch,,
Governor-General of Eastern Siberia,
Irkutsk.
St. Petr, Kadiak Island, Russian America,
July 10th, 1806.
Venerable Brother,—
In the name of all the saints—vodka! Send barrels! I languish on salmon, and Eskimo, inhaling the latter, for so far I have been mercifully delivered from the necessity of eating any. They are suffocating.
I pray you salute the Immaculate Ruin, our Aunt, and kiss her on my behalf. Thus I shall have done my duty, but not suffered.
Oh for the delights of your Excellency's palace, and a clean shirt!
How I envy you the very least of those perquisites and assumptions of plunder which ever flow into your treasury, pickings worthy a minister of state. But at the least I am solvent, for so long as I can blow my own trumpet I shall never be destitute, having Her Excellency—Salute!—yourself—General Salute!—and the Immaculate Ruin—nine guns!—to borrow from. In default of roubles I repay, as you perceive, in compliments.