in her mouth! That's not proper, you know, papa!"

Then he went on to describe how, while they were having dinner, a
man with a hurdy-gurdy had come into the yard with a little girl,
who had danced and sung to the music.

"He has his own train of thought!" thought the prosecutor. "He has
a little world of his own in his head, and he has his own ideas of
what is important and unimportant. To gain possession of his
attention, it's not enough to imitate his language, one must also
be able to think in the way he does. He would understand me perfectly
if I really were sorry for the loss of the tobacco, if I felt injured
and cried. . . . That's why no one can take the place of a mother
in bringing up a child, because she can feel, cry, and laugh together
with the child. One can do nothing by logic and morality. What more
shall I say to him? What?"

And it struck Yevgeny Petrovitch as strange and absurd that he, an
experienced advocate, who spent half his life in the practice of
reducing people to silence, forestalling what they had to say, and
punishing them, was completely at a loss and did not know what to
say to the boy.

"I say, give me your word of honour that you won't smoke again,"
he said.

"Word of hon-nour!" carolled Seryozha, pressing hard on the pencil
and bending over the drawing. "Word of hon-nour!"

"Does he know what is meant by word of honour?" Bykovsky asked