another, the dirty room, a habit which Zuchin had of continually snuffling and pressing a finger to his nose, and, above all, their manner of speaking — that is to say, their use and intonation of words. For instance, they said “flat” for fool, “just the ticket” for exactly, “grandly” for splendidly, and so on — all of which seemed to me either bookish or disagreeably vulgar. Still more was my “comme il faut” refinement disturbed by the accents which they put upon certain Russian — and, still more, upon foreign — words.

Thus they said dieYATelnost for DIEyatelnost, NARochno for naROChno, v’KAMinie for v’kaMINie, SHAKespeare for ShakesPEARe, and so forth.

Yet, for all their insuperably repellent exterior,