When they had re-uniformed him in this manner, treated him to tea with Platoff's vodka for the journey, and had drawn in his leather belt as snugly as possible, in order that his bowels might not shake, they took him to London. And there foreign things happened to the left-handed man. FOOTNOTES: [24] The genuine Russian form of saying, "I forgive you." [25] It would be difficult to devise an outfit more comically unsuited to the whole style and bearing of the squint-eyed, left-handed Tula gunsmith. The kaftan of a Court singer (member of the Imperial Choir) is made of cloth, the hue of an American Beauty rose, elaborately trimmed with broad gold galloon. All Choristers' kaftans in Russia have simulated angel-wings on the shoulders and back, as (in the language of the Cherubimic Hymn in the Liturgy) they represent the Cherubim. The leather belt is the crowning touch of absurdity. XV The Courier travelled so very swiftly with the left-handed man, that they halted nowhere to rest between Petrograd and London, but merely drew their belts tighter at every posting-station, so that their bowels and their lungs might not get mixed up together; but, as an allowance of liquor at will had been appointed to the left-handed man after his interview with the Emperor, at Platoffs instance, he sustained himself on that alone, without eating, and sang Russian songs all through Europe, making only a refrain in foreign fashion, "Aï, people, _c'est très juli_."[26] As soon as the Courier brought him to London, he presented himself to the proper persons and delivered the casket, but placed the left-handed man in a chamber at a hotel; but there the latter speedily grew bored, and felt a desire to eat. He knocked on the door, and pointed out his mouth to the servant who waited on him, and the man immediately conducted him to the food-reception room. There the left-handed man seated himself at the table, and sat, and sat; but how to ask for anything in English he did not know. But after a while he found out. Again he simply tapped upon the table with his finger, and pointed at his mouth; the Englishmen guessed, and served him, only they did not always bring what he wanted, but he did not take what did not suit him. They brought him a hot studing in fire[27] of their preparation. Says he, "I know not whether that can be eaten," and he would not taste it; so they changed it, and brought him another dish. And thus, also, he would not drink their brandy, because it was green, as though mixed with copperas, but chose the most natural things of all, and waited for the Courier in the coolness behind the bottle-room. And those persons to whom the Courier had delivered the nymfozoria examined it that very moment with the most powerful melkoscopes, and immediately put a description in the public news, so that an announcement[28] of it might come to general notice on the following day. "And we wish to see that master-workman himself at once," said they.