Chief—Whether they care or not, I have warned you, gentlemen. See to it! I have made some arrangements in my own department, and I advise you to do the same. Especially you, Artemiy Philip'itch! Without doubt, this traveling official will wish first of all to inspect your institutions—and therefore you must arrange things so that they will be decent. The nightcaps should be clean, and the sick people should not look like blacksmiths, as they usually do in private.
Curator—Well, that's a mere trifle. We can put clean nightcaps on them.
Chief—And then, you ought to have written up over the head of each bed, in Latin or some other language—that's your business—the name of each disease: when each patient was taken sick, the day and hour. It is not well that your sick people should smoke such strong tobacco that one has to sneeze every time he goes in there. Yes, and it would be better if there were fewer of them: it will be set down at once to bad supervision or to lack of skill on the doctor's part.
Curator—Oh! so far as the doctoring is concerned, Christian Ivan'itch and I have already taken measures: the nearer to nature the better,—we don't use any expensive medicines. Man is a simple creature: if he dies, why then he dies; if he gets well, why then he gets well. And then, it would have been difficult for Christian Ivan'itch to make them understand him—he doesn't know one word of Russian.
Chief—I should also advise you, Ammos Feodor'itch, to turn your attention to court affairs. In the ante-room, where the clients usually assemble, your janitor has got a lot of geese and goslings, which waddle about under foot. Of course it is praiseworthy to be thrifty in domestic affairs, and why should not the janitor be so too? only, you know, it is not proper in that place. I meant to mention it to you before, but always forgot it.
Judge—I'll order them to be taken to the kitchen this very day. Will you come and dine with me?
Chief—And moreover, it is not well that all sorts of stuff should be put to dry in the court-room, and that over the very desk, with the documents, there should be a hunting-whip. I know that you are fond of hunting, but there is a proper time for everything, and you can hang it up there again when the Inspector takes his departure. And then your assistant—he's a man of experience, but there's a smell about him as though he had just come from a distillery—and that's not as it should be. I meant to speak to you about it long ago, but something, I don't recall now precisely what, put it out of my mind. There is a remedy, if he really was born with the odor, as he asserts: you might advise him to eat onions or garlic or something. In that case, Christian Ivan'itch could assist you with some medicaments.
Judge—No, it's impossible to drive it out: he says that his mother injured him when he was a child, and an odor of whisky has emanated from him ever since.
Chief—Yes, I just remarked on it. As for internal arrangements, and what Andrei Ivan'itch in his letter calls "faults," I can say nothing. Yes, and strange to say, there is no man who has not his faults. God himself arranged it so, and it is useless for the freethinkers to maintain the contrary.
Judge—What do you mean by faults, Anton Anton'itch? There are various sorts of faults. I tell every one frankly that I take bribes; but what sort of bribes? greyhound pups. That's quite another thing.