“That’s just what I say: you don’t know.”
The discussion was evidently finished. But as the train had not yet come, and no one had anything to do, the company would have found it a little awkward to let the conversation drop at the conclusion of the poultry-farmers speech. Every one felt (as is the case at the meetings of learned societies) the need of some kind of answer or continuation. After a moment’s silence, therefore, one of the silhouettes (I think, from his voice, it was the one who had laid the suicide of the publican to the devil’s account) suddenly remarked—
“You talk about inventions—you’re right there; there’s no end to what they’ve invented nowadays! One day, when I was in Petersburg, I was going along the Isàkievskaya Square, and there was a grand sledge driving past, with a beautiful horse; it must have cost thousands, for harness and everything was splendid; and the driver was just like a figure in a picture. And what do you think, mates! they’d got stuck on to that driver, just here like—it’s as true as I live ... just in this place....”
“Where?”
“Here, I tell you!... It’s the truth. What do you think he’d got stuck on?... A watch!...”
“Stuck on to him there?”
“A great watch, half as big as my hand.... That’s so the gentleman in the sledge can always see it. I should have felt ashamed, if I’d been the driver.”
“I suppose the gentleman was so grand he couldn’t take the trouble to unbutton his coat.”
“I s’pose he wanted to know, to a second, how long he was driving; his time must have been precious! I dare say he had a lot of business.”
“Well!” interposed the poultry-farmer, contemptuously; “if that’s what you call an invention! There are inventions of quite another sort nowadays, my friend! People are getting too clever to live with their inventions.”