Father Elias Vasilich,' said Eroshka, rising with (or so it seemed to Olenin) an ironically low bow.
'Good morning.Daddy.So you're here already,' said the cornet, with a careless nod.
The cornet was a man of about forty, with a grey pointed beard, skinny and lean, but handsome and very fresh-looking for his age.

Having come to see Olenin he was evidently afraid of being taken for an ordinary Cossack, and wanted to let Olenin feel his importance from the first.
'That's our Egyptian Nimrod,' he remarked, addressing Olenin and pointing to the old man with a self-satisfied smile.

'A mighty hunter before the Lord! He's our foremost man on every hand.

You've already been pleased to get acquainted with him.' Daddy Eroshka gazed at his feet in their shoes of wet raw hide and shook his head thoughtfully at the cornet's ability and learning, and muttered to himself: 'Gyptian Nimvrod! What things he invents!' 'Yes, you see we mean to go hunting,' answered Olenin.
'Yes, sir, exactly,' said the cornet, 'but I have a small business with you.' 'What do you want ?' 'Seeing that you are a gentleman,' began the cornet, 'and as I may understand myself to be in the rank of an officer too, and therefore we may always progressively negotiate, as gentlemen do.' (He stopped and looked with a smile at Olenin and at the old man.) 'But if you have the desire with my consent, then, as my wife is a foolish woman of our class, she could not quite comprehend your words of yesterday's date.
Therefore my quarters might be let for six rubles to the Regimental Adjutant, without the stables; but I can always avert that from myself free of charge.

But, as you desire, therefore I, being myself of an officer's rank, can come to an agreement with you in everything personally, as an inhabitant of this district, not according to our customs, but can maintain the conditions in every way....' 'Speaks clearly!' muttered the old man.
The cornet continued in the same strain for a long time.