“And so we’ll pay our family visits, will look at the fair, pay a visit to the chateau des FLEURS, enjoy ourselves a little, stroll a bit, and then to the Volga down to Tzaritzin, to the Black Sea, and then again home to our native Odessa.”

“That’s a fine journey,” said the sub-lieutenant modestly.

“I should say it’s fine,” agreed Simon Yakovlevich; “but there are no roses without thorns.  The work of a travelling salesman is exceedingly difficult and requires many kinds of knowledge, and not so much the knowledge of business as the knowledge of—­how shall I say it?—­the knowledge of the human soul.  Another man may not even want to give an order, but you must work like an elephant to convince him, and argue until he feels the clearness and justice of your words.  Because I take only absolutely clean lines exclusively, of which there can be no doubts.  A fake or a bad line I will not take, although they should offer me millions for it.  Ask wherever you like, in any store which deals in cloths or suspenders gloire—­I’m also a representative from this firm—­or buttons helios—­you just ask who Simon Yakovlevich Horizon is, and everyone will answer you:  ’Simon Yakovlevich is not a man, but gold; this is a disinterested man, as honest as a diamond.’  “And Horizon was already unpacking long boxes with patented suspenders, and was showing the glistening leaves of cardboard, covered with regular rows of vari-coloured buttons.

“There happen great unpleasantnesses, when the place has been worked out, when a lot of travelling salesmen have appeared before you.  Here you can’t do anything; they absolutely won’t listen to you, only wave their arms.  But that’s only for others.  I am Horizon!  I can talk him over, the same like a camel from a menagerie.  But it happens still more unpleasant, when two competitors in one and the same line come together in the same town.  And it happens even worse when it’s some chimney sweep and can’t do business himself and spoils business for you too.  Here you go to all sorts of tricks:  let him drink till he’s drunk or let him go off somewhere on a false track.  Not an easy trade!  Besides that, I have one more line—­that’s false eyes and teeth.  But it ain’t a profitable line.  I want to drop it.  And besides I’m thinking of leaving all this business.  I understand, it’s all right for a young man, in the bloom of his powers, to flutter around like a moth, but once you have a wife, and may be a whole family even ...” he playfully patted the woman on the knee, from which she became scarlet and looked uncommonly better.  “For the Lord has blessed us Jews with fecundity for all our misfortunes ...  Then you want to have some business of your own, you want, you understand, to become settled in one place, so’s there should be a shack of your own, and your own furniture, and your own bedroom, and kitchen ...  Isn’t that so, your excellency?”

“Yes ...  Yes ... eh—­eh ...  Yes, of course, of course,” condescendingly responded the general.