hird cigarette
rolled from his fingers, and he took up the parchment tongue for the
nineteenth hundred and twenty-fourth time that day.

"I do not exactly understand you, Herr Schmidt," said Vjera without
looking up again. "An objectless life has no object. How then--"

"There is nothing to understand," growled Dumnoff, who never counted his
own work, and always enjoyed a bit of conversation, provided he could
abuse something or somebody. "There is nothing in it, and Herr Schmidt is
a Landau moss-head."

It would be curious to ascertain why the wiseacres of eastern Bavaria are
held throughout South Germany in such contempt as to be a byword for
dulness and stupidity. The Cossack's dark eyes shot a quick glance at the
Russian, but he took no notice of the remark.

"I mean," he said, after a pause, "exactly what I say. I am an honest
fellow, and I always mean what I say, and no offence to anybody. Do we not
all of us, here with Fischelowitz, exactly fulfil the object set before
us, I would like to ask? Do we not make cigarettes from morning till night
with horrible exactness and regularity? Very well. Do we not, at the same
time, lead an atrociously objectless existence?"

"The object of existence is to live," remarked Dumnoff, who was fond of
cabbage and strong spirits, and of little else in the world. The Cossack
laughed.

"Do you call this living?" he asked contemptuously. Then the good-humoured
tone returned to his voice, and he shrugged his bony shoulders as he
crossed one leg over the other and took another puff.

"Nineteen hundred and twenty-nine," said the Count.

"Do you call that a life for a Christian man?" asked Schmidt again,
looking at him and waving towards him the lighted cigarette he held. "Is
that a life for a gentleman, for a real Count, for a noble, for an
educated aristocrat, for a man born to be the heir of millions?"

"Thirty," said the Count. "No, it is not. But there is no reason why you
should remind us of the fact, that I know of. It is bad enough to be
obliged to do the thing, without being made to talk about it. Not that it
matters to me so much to-day as it did a year ago, as you may imagine.
Thirty-one. It will soon be over for me, at least. In fact I only finish
these two thousand out of kindness to Fischelowitz, because I know he has
a large order to deliver on the day after to-morrow. And, besides, a
gentleman must keep his word even--thirty-two--in the matter of making
cigarett