Mais v'la! Fortune favoured me.

It chanced that a kinsman of my father's, a certain John Karpathy, who was very much richer than my father----" "Aha!" "A mad, doating old fellow, of whom I could tell you a thousand follies." "Really ?" "Oh yes.

He never budges from his native village; but he has a theatre in his castle, in which they play his own comedies; he sends for the leading prima donnas, simply that they may sing boorish peasant ditties to him; and he keeps a whole palace for his dogs, who eat with him from the same table." "Anything else ?" "Then he has a whole harem of farmyard wenches, and _betyars_ similar to himself dance with them and him till dawn.

Then he sets the whole company by the ears, and they fight till the blood flows in streams." "Nothing more ?" "And then his conduct is so very eccentric.

He can't endure anything that comes from abroad.