This page has been validated.
THE STEEL FLEA
hair and beard should be trimmed in a hairdresser's shop, and that he should be clothed in a State kaftan taken from a Court singer,[1] so that he might make a good appearance, and have some sort of rank conferred upon him.
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.
XV
The Courier travelled so very swiftly with the left-handed man, that they
- ↑ 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 Hynm in the Liturgy) they repre-
[ 62 ]
