Alexyei Sergyeitch preferred the olden days.--"Things were freer then, more seemly, I assure you on my honour! But ever since the year one thousand and eight hundred" (why precisely from that year he did not explain), "this warring and this soldiering have come into fashion, my dear fellow. These military gentlemen have mounted upon their heads some sort of plumes made of cocks' tails, and made themselves like cocks; they have drawn their necks up tightly, very tightly ... they speak in hoarse tones, their eyes are popping out of their heads--and how can they help being hoarse? The other day some police corporal or other came to see me.--'I have come to you, Your Well-Born,' quoth he.... (A pretty way he had chosen to surprise me! ... for I know myself that I am well-born....) 'I have a matter of business with you.' But I said to him: 'Respected sir, first undo the hooks on thy collar. Otherwise, which God forbid, thou wilt sneeze! Akh, what will become of thee! What will become of thee!--Thou wilt burst like a puff-ball.... And I shall be responsible for it!' And how they drink, those military gentlemen--o-ho-ho! I generally give orders that they shall be served with champagne from the Don, because Don champagne and Pontacq are all the same to them; it slips down their throats so smoothly and so fast--how are they to distinguish the difference? And here's another thing: they have begun to suck that sucking-bottle, to smoke tobacco. A military man will stick that same sucking-bottle under his moustache, between his lips, and emit smoke through his nostrils, his mouth, and even his ears--and think himself a hero! There are my horrid sons-in-law, for example; although one of them is a senator, and the other is some sort of a curator, they suck at the sucking-bottle also,--and yet they regard themselves as clever men!..."