Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/92

76 had been so cheered and inebriated by the events of the morning, and was in such an exalté mental condition, that mere physical discomfort had no influence upon him whatever. He talked incessantly; but noticing after a time that we were disposed to listen rather than to reply, and imagining that our silence must be due to the overawing effect of his power and glory, he said to me with friendly and reassuring condescension, "You need n't remember that I am the chief of police; you can treat me and talk to me just as if I were a private individual."

I thanked him for his generous attempt to put us at our ease in his august presence, and he rattled on with all sorts of nonsense to show us how gracefully he could drop the mantle of a dread and mighty chief of police and condescend to men of low degree.

About five versts from the town we stopped for a moment to change positions, and Khainúief suggested that this would be a good time to try the "insanity drops." I gave him my flask, and after he had poured a little of the raw vódka into the palm of his hand and thrown it to the four cardinal points of the compass as a libation to his gods, he drank two cupfuls, wiped his wet, bristly mustache on the tail of his ultramarine blue silk gown, and remarked with cool impudence, "Prostáya kabáchnaya!" [Common gin-mill stuff!] I could not remember the Russian equivalent for the English proverb about looking a gift-horse in the mouth, but I suggested to Khainúief that it was not necessary to poison himself with a second cupful after he had discovered that it was nothing but "common gin-mill stuff." I noticed that poor as the stuff might be he did not waste any more of it on his north-south-east-and-west gods. The raw, fiery spirit had less effect upon him than I anticipated, but it noticeably increased the range of his self-assertion and self-manifestation. He nearly frightened the life out of our wretched driver by the fierceness with which he shouted "Yábo! Yábo!" [Faster! faster!], and when the poor driver