“Do you fancy we’re going to amuse ourselves by discussing _you_?” says the ex-quartermaster in a superior manner. “Kvassoff, I tell you you’re a big idiot! If you fancy that the Major can grease the palm of an Inspector-General you’ve got things finely muddled; d’ye fancy they send a man from Petersburg just to inspect your Major? You’re a precious dolt, my lad; take it from me that it is so.” “And you fancy because he’s a General he doesn’t take what’s offered?” said some one in the crowd in a sceptical tone. “I should think he did indeed, and plenty of it whenever he can.” “A dead sure thing that; gets bigger, and more, and worse, the higher the rank.” “A General _always_ has his palm greased,” says Kvassoff, sententiously. “Did _you_ ever give them money, as you’re so sure of it?” asks Baklouchin, suddenly striking in, in a tone of contempt; “come, now, did you ever see a General in all your life?” “Yes.” “Liar!” “Liar, yourself!” “Well, boys, as he _has_ seen a General, let him say _which_. Come, quick about it; I know ’em all, every man jack.” “I’ve seen General Zibert,” says Kvassoff in tones far from sure. “Zibert! There’s no General of that name. That’s the General, perhaps, who was looking at your back when they gave you the cat. This Zibert was, perhaps, a Lieutenant-Colonel; but you were in such a fright just then, you took him for a General.” “No! Just hear me,” cries Skouratoff, “for I’ve got a wife. There was really a General of that name, a German, but a Russian subject. He confessed to the Pope, every year, all about his peccadilloes with gay women, and drank water like a duck, at least forty glasses of Moskva water one after the other; that was the way he got cured of some disease. I had it from his valet.” “I say! And the carp didn’t swim in his belly?” this from the convict with the balalaïka. “Be quiet, fellows, can’t you--one’s talking seriously, and there they are beginning their nonsense again. Who’s the ’spector that’s coming?” This was put by a convict who always seemed full of business, Martinof, an old man who had been in the Hussars. “Set of lying fellows!” said one of the doubters. “Lord knows where they get it all from; it’s all empty talk.” “It’s nothing of the sort,” observes Koulikoff, majestically silent hitherto, in dogmatic tones. “The man coming is big and fat, about fifty years, with regular features, and proud, contemptuous manners, on which he prides himself.” Koulikoff is a Tsigan, a sort of veterinary surgeon, makes money by treating horses in town, and sells wine in our prison. He’s no fool, plenty of brain, memory well stocked, lets his words fall as carefully as if every one of ’em was worth a rouble.