"And Ivan Petrovitch," Bruni prompted him.

"And Ivan Petrovitch Kulikin, who grudge no expense for the school,
and I propose to drink their health. . . ."

"For my part," said Bruni, jumping up as though he had been stung,
"I propose a toast to the health of the honoured inspector of
elementary schools, Pavel Gennadievitch Nadarov!"

Chairs were pushed back, faces beamed with smiles, and the usual
clinking of glasses began.

The third toast always fell to Sysoev. And on this occasion, too,
he got up and began to speak. Looking grave and clearing his throat,
he first of all announced that he had not the gift of eloquence and
that he was not prepared to make a speech. Further he said that
during the fourteen years that he had been schoolmaster there had
been many intrigues, many underhand attacks, and even secret reports
on him to the authorities, and that he knew his enemies and those
who had informed against him, and he would not mention their names,
"for fear of spoiling somebody's appetite"; that in spite of these
intrigues the Kulikin school held the foremost place in the whole
province not only from a moral, but also from a material point of
view."

"Everywhere else," he said, "schoolmasters get two hundred or three
hundred roubles, while I get five hundred, and moreover my house
has been redecorated and even furnished at the expense of the firm.
And this year all the walls have been repapered. . . ."