Page:John Feoktist Dudikoff - Beasts in Cassocks (1924).djvu/35

 expressed his passicnate desire to see me drunk: "Oh, I would have the order of St. Stanislaus conferred on you, Johnnie, if you would only get dead drunk!"

After a while I realized that the voices behind the partition were those of Bishop Alexander and Madam Snegirey. I began to suspect something and the meaning of the Bishop's sentence "I told you so" became clear to me. I understood why the Bishop sent Father Snegirev to the telephone and why Archbishop Platon gave him an important errand, in spite of Sunday. This was arranged, of course, in order to remove all obstacles.



Meanwhile something was happening m the bedroom because I heard a noise. Finally a sound was heard of something falling. Believing that a brawl was taking place, I jumped off the bed and ran to the dining room. There, Father Slunin hardly able to stand on his feet, was attempting to rise. Gorokhov, sitting in an arm-chair held him by a sleeve and pulled him back to the chair, and Father Slunin fell into it. Gorokhoy admonished him: "Johnnie, sit down, sit. … What's the use of showing your drunken mug to the negroes in the street? Let's have another drink. …" Finally