In Russia, by the way, there are no exceptions to general rules.

The personal habits of the native of Cronstadt differ in no way from those of the Czar's subject living in Petropavlovsk, eight thousand miles away.
Around the long table of the host were seated, at respectable intervals, a dozen or more gentlemen, who gazed stolidly at each other from time to time, while the host himself smiled broadly upon them all from that end of the room where the lift and the smell of cooking exercise their calling--the one to spoil the appetite, the other to pander to it when spoilt.
Of these dozen gentlemen we have only to deal with one--a man of broad, high forehead, of colorless eyes, of a mask-like face, who consumed what was put before him with as little noise as possible.

Known in Paris as "Ce bon Vassili," this traveller.

But in Paris one does not always use the word bon in its English sense of "good." M.Vassili was evidently desirous of attracting as little attention as circumstances would allow.

He was obviously doing his best to look like one who travelled in the interest of braid or buttons.