No More Learning

GOVERNOR: Good lord! Surely it cannot be he! Been here a fortnight?
May heaven help us. You, sirs, get all your departments in proper trim.
In the meantime I will take a stroll round the town, and satisfy myself
that travellers are treated with due respect.

The governor orders the police to see that the street leading to the
inn is well swept. He threatens to punish severely any of the
townspeople who shall dare to bring complaints of any kind to the
visiting official.


ACT II

SCENE. --_A small room in the inn_. OSIP _lying on his master's bed_.

OSIP: Devil take it! I am famishing. It is two months since we left
St. Petersburg.
This master of mine has squandered all his money on the
way, and here we are penniless. The old man sends his son money, but
he goes on the racket with it till all is spent, and then he has to
pawn his clothes almost to the last rag. And now this landlord declares
he will let us have nothing more to eat unless we pay in advance. Ah,
there's the knock.

[_He gets off the bed_. KHELSTAKOV _enters_.

KHELSTAKOV: Go down and ask for something to eat.

OSIP: No. The landlord will not let us have it. He says we are
swindlers, and he threatens to have you put in prison.

KHELSTAKOV: Go to the devil! Call the landlord. (OSIP _goes_. ) How
fearfully hungry I am. And I was cheated at cards and cleaned right out
at Penza by that infantry captain. What a miserable little town this
is.