When he's said of a man he's a scoundrel, he knows nothing more about him except that he's a scoundrel.
Or if he's said he's a fool, then that man has no calling with him except that of fool.

But I may be a fool Tuesday and Wednesday, and on Thursday wiser than he.

Here now he knows about me that I'm awfully sick to get a passport, for there's no getting on in Russia without papers--so he thinks that he's snared my soul.

I tell you, sir, life's a very easy business for Pyotr Stepanovitch, for he fancies a man to be this and that, and goes on as though he really was.

And, what's more, he's beastly stingy.