The Courier led them to the chamber, and thence to the food-reception room, where our left-handed man had already grown fairly red in the face, and said: "Here he is!" The Englishmen immediately began to clap the left-handed man on the shoulder, _slap-slap_, and on the hands, as with an equal. "Comrade," said they, "comrade,--good master,--we will talk with thee hereafter, in due time, but now we will drink to thy success." They called for a great deal of liquor, and gave the first glass to the left-handed man, but he would not drink first: "Perhaps they wish to poison me out of vexation," he thought. "No," says he, "that is not proper etiquette. Even in Poland no one is greater than the host--drink first yourselves." The Englishmen tested all the liquors in his presence, and then began to pour out for him. He rose, crossed himself with his left hand, and drank to the health of them all. They noticed that he crossed himself with his left hand, and asked the Courier: "What is he--a Lutheran or a Protestant?" The Courier replied: "No, he is neither a Lutheran nor a Protestant, but of the Russian faith." "But why does he cross himself with his left hand?" The Courier said: "He's left-handed, and does everything with his left hand." The Englishmen began to be more amazed than ever, and set to pouring liquor into the left-handed man and the Courier, and thus they went on for three days, and then they said: "Now, that's enough." But they took a symphony of water with airfixe, and having completely freshened themselves up, they began to interrogate the left-handed man; Where and what he had studied, and to what point he was acquainted with arithmetic? The left-handed man replied: "Our learning is single: we can read the Psalter and the Polusonnik, but we know no arithmetic whatever." The Englishmen exchanged glances and said: "This is astounding!" But the left-handed man replied: "That's the way with us everywhere." "But," they inquire, "what sort of a book in Russia is that 'Polusonnik'?"[29] "That," says he, "is a book concerned with this--that if there is anything touching on fortune-telling which King David has not clearly set forth in the Psalter, then people are able to divine the completion in the Polusonnik." They say: "That's a pity; 't would be better if you knew at least the four ordinary rules of arithmetic,--they would be far more useful to you than the entire Polusonnik. Then you would be able to grasp the fact that in every machine there is a calculation of powers, and although you are very clever with your hands, you have not taken into consideration that such a tiny machine as the nymfozoria is calculated with the most exact accuracy, and that it cannot carry its shoes." To that the left-handed man agreed. "As to that," says he, "there is no dispute--that we have not gone in for science, but only we are faithfully loyal to our Fatherland."