I mean it is awful how many of your sort are toadies hanging about
rich men. The number of these peaceful bandits and robbers is beyond
all reckoning! Shouldn't we send for the gypsies now? Eh? Fetch the
gypsies along!"

The gypsies, who had been hanging about wearily in the corridors
for a long time, burst with whoops into the room, and a wild orgy
began.

"Drink!" Frolov shouted to them. "Drink! Seed of Pharaoh! Sing!
A-a-ah!"

"In the winter time . . . o-o-ho! . . . the sledge was flying . . ."

The gypsies sang, whistled, danced. In the frenzy which sometimes
takes possession of spoilt and very wealthy men, "broad natures,"
Frolov began to play the fool. He ordered supper and champagne for
the gypsies, broke the shade of the electric light, shied bottles
at the pictures and looking-glasses, and did it all apparently
without the slightest enjoyment, scowling and shouting irritably,
with contempt for the people, with an expression of hatred in his
eyes and his manners. He made the engineer sing a solo, made the
bass singers drink a mixture of wine, vodka, and oil.

At six o'clock they handed him the bill.

"Nine hundred and twenty-five roubles, forty kopecks," said Almer,
and shrugged his shoulders. "What's it for? No, wait, we must go
into it!"