Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/106

94 damned seven after the stakes had been doubled, I might have broken the whole bank.'

'You didn't break it, though,' observed the fair man.

'I didn't break it because I laid two to one on the seven at the wrong minute. But do you suppose your major is a good player?'

'Whether he is good or bad, he beat you.'

'As though that mattered,' said Nozdryov; 'I shall beat him all the same. Just let him try playing doubles, then I shall see; I shall see then how much of a player he is. But what a roaring time we had the first days, friend Tchitchikov. The fair really was a first-rate one. The very dealers said there had never been such a crowd. Everything I had brought from the village was sold at tip-top prices. Ah, my boy, didn't we have a time! Even now when one thinks of it … dash it all! What a pity you weren't there! Only fancy, there was a regiment of dragoons stationed only two miles from the town. Would you believe it, all the officers, forty of them, were in the town, every man-jack of them. … When we began to drink, my boy … the staff-captain Potsyeluev … such a jolly fellow … such fine moustaches, my boy! He calls Bordeaux simply "bordashka." "Bring us some bordashka, waiter!" he would say. Lieutenant Kuvshinnikov … ah, my boy, what a charming man! One might say he is a regular dog! He and I were together all the time. What wine Ponomarev brought out for us! You must know he is a regular cheat; you shouldn't