THE STEEL FLEA
other direction, Oryol lies another "twice ninety versts," and from Oryol to Kieff is a good five hundred versts more. Such a road is not to be speedily traversed, and having traversed it, one recovers not quickly—the feet will remain like glass, and the hands will tremble for a long time thereafter.
Some persons even thought that the gunsmiths had been over-boastful in the presence of Platoff, and that afterwards, when they had bethought themselves, they had lost their courage, and had now decamped for good, carrying off with them the imperial gold snuffbox, and the diamond, and the English steel flea, which had caused them this trouble, in its case.
But this supposition, also, was utterly without foundation, and unworthy of the clever men upon whom the hope of the nation now rested.
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