Page:The Steel Flea.djvu/39

 lists, but nothing was recorded in the archives. They began to question first one person and then another—no one knew anything about it. But, happily, that Cossack of the Don, Platoff, was still alive, and even still reclining on his couch of vexation and smoking his pipe. When he heard the uproar in the palace, he rose immediately from his couch, flung away his pipe, and presented himself before the Emperor in all his Orders.

The Emperor says: "What dost thou want from me, valiant old man?"

And Platoff answers: "I want nothing from Your Majesty for myself, since I eat and drink what I please, and am content with all things: but I am come to report to you concerning that nymfozoria which has been found. It was thus and so," says he, "and this is what took place before my own eyes in England—and there is a tiny key with it,