a question.

"Hullo, old fellow! It will be no good for you to listen if you do not
know the subject," said Zuchin. "I will lend you my notebooks, and then
you can read it up by to-morrow, and I will explain it to you."

I felt rather ashamed of my ignorance. Also, I felt the truth of what
he said; so I gave up listening, and amused myself by observing my
new comrades. According to my classification of humanity, into persons
"comme il faut" and persons not "comme il faut," they evidently belonged
to the latter category, and so aroused in me not only a feeling of
contempt, but also a certain sensation of personal hostility, for the
reason that, though not "comme il faut," they accounted me their equal,
and actually patronised me in a sort of good-humoured fashion. What in
particular excited in me this feeling was their feet, their dirty nails
and fingers, a particularly long talon on Operoff's obtrusive
little finger, their red shirts, their dickeys, the chaff which they
good-naturedly threw at one another, the dirty room, a habit which
Zuchin had of continually snuffling and pressing a finger to his nose,
and, above all, their manner of speaking--that is to say, their use and
intonation of words. For instance, they said "flat" for fool, "just the
ticket" for exactly, "grandly" for splendidly, and so on--all of which
seemed to me either bookish or disagreeably vulgar. Still more was my
"comme il faut" refinement disturbed by the accents which they put upon
certain Russian--and, still more, upon foreign--words. Thus they said
dieYATelnost for DIEyatelnost, NARochno for naROChno, v'KAMinie for
v'kaMINie, SHAKespeare for ShakesPEARe, and so forth.

Yet, for all their insuperably repellent exterior, I could detect
something good in these fellows, and envied them the cheerful
good-fellowship which united them in one. Consequently, I began to feel
attracted towards them, and made up my mind that, come what might, I
would become of their number. The kind and honourable Operoff I knew
already, and now the brusque, but exceptionally clever, Zuchin (who
evidently took the lead in this circle) began to please me greatly.
He was a dark, thick-set little fellow, with a perennially glistening,
polished face, but one that was extremely lively, intellectual, and
independent in its expression. That expression it derived from a low,
but prominent, forehead, deep black eyes, short, bristly hair, and a
thick, dark beard which looked as th