Whirls of laughter would invade our table.

"Oh, do look at Goga!" some one would say, and there we all were, perhaps for a quarter of an hour! Semyonov, strangely enough, shared this childish habit, and there was nothing odder than to see the man lose control of himself, double himself up, laugh until the tears ran down his face--simply at nothing at all! The truth is that now I was very far from hating him.

There were moments, certainly, when he was rude to the Sisters, when he was abominably greedy, when he was ruthlessly selfish, when he poured scorn upon me; at such times I thought him, as Trenchard has expressed it, a "beastly" man.

He certainly had no great opinion of myself.

"You think yourself very clever, Ivan Andreievitch.