PAGE 5
The First-Class Passenger
by
Three minutes passed in silence.
“Allow me in my turn to ask you a question,” said the vis-a-vis timidly, clearing his throat. Do you know the name of Pushkov?”
“Pushkov? H’m! Pushkov. . . . No, I don’t know it!”
“That is my name,. . .” said the vis-a-vis,, overcome with embarrassment. “Then you don’t know it? And yet I have been a professor at one of the Russian universities for thirty-five years, . . . a member of the Academy of Sciences, . . . have published more than one work. . . .”
The first-class passenger and the vis-a-vis looked at each other and burst out laughing.