0 The Brothers Karamazov
sign of my son, Dmitri. I apologise for him, sacred elder!’
(Alyosha shuddered all over at ‘sacred elder”.) ‘I am always
punctual myself, minute for minute, remembering that
punctuality is the courtesy of kings....
‘But you are not a king, anyway,’ Miusov muttered, losing
his self-restraint at once.
‘Yes; that’s true. I’m not a king, and, would you believe
it, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, I was aware of that myself. But,
there! I always say the wrong thing. Your reverence,’ he
cried, with sudden pathos, ‘you behold before you a buf-
foon in earnest! I introduce myself as such. It’s an old habit,
alas! And if I sometimes talk nonsense out of place it’s with
an object, with the object of amusing people and making
myself agreeable. One must be agreeable, mustn’t one? I was
seven years ago in a little town where I had business, and I
made friends with some merchants there. We went to the
captain of police because we had to see him about some-
thing, and to ask him to dine with us. He was a tall, fat,
fair, sulky man, the most dangerous type in such cases. It’s
their liver. I went straight up to him, and with the ease of a
man of the world, you know, ‘Mr. Ispravnik,’ said I, ‘be our
Napravnik.’ ‘What do you mean by Napravnik?’ said he. I
saw, at the first half-second, that it had missed fire. He stood
there so glum. ‘I wanted to make a joke,’ said I, ‘for the gen-
eral diversion, as Mr. Napravnik is our well-known Russian
orchestra conductor and what we need for the harmony of
our undertaking is someone of that sort.’ And I explained
my comparison very reasonably, didn’t I? ‘Excuse me,’ said
he, ‘I am an Ispravnik, and I do not allow puns to be made