And he stood waiting in great satisfaction at having arrived before the President had so much as left his bed and been served with his silver wash-basin.

Nevertheless, it was only when Kopeikin had been waiting four hours that a breakfast waiter entered to say, 'The President will soon be here.' By now the room was as full of people as a plate is of beans, and when the President left the breakfast-room he brought with him, oh, such dignity and refinement, and such an air of the metropolis! First he walked up to one person, and then up to another, saying: 'What do YOU want?
And what do YOU want?
What can I do for YOU?
What is YOUR business ?' And at length he stopped before Kopeikin, and Kopeikin said to him: 'I have shed my blood, and lost both an arm and a leg, for my country, and am unable to work.

Might I therefore dare to ask you for a little help, if the regulations should permit of it, or for a gratuity, or for a pension, or something of the kind ?' Then the President looked at him, and saw that one of his legs was indeed a wooden one, and that an empty right sleeve was pinned to his uniform.

'Very well,' he said.

'Come to me again in a few days' time.' Upon this friend Kopeikin felt delighted.