THE STEEL FLEA
"Certainly, my friend," says he, "I am very intimately acquainted with him—I have even tweaked him by the hair—only I know not how I can assist him in his present unhappy plight, because I am now entirely out of the service and have received full pension, so they no longer respect me; but do you run quickly to Commandant Skobeleff; he is in power, and also experienced in this sort of thing—he will do something."
And the half-skipper went to Skobeleff, and told him everything; what the left-handed man's illness was, and how he had contracted it. Says Skobeleff: "I understand this complaint, only the Germans cannot cure it; but some sort of a doctor of the ecclesiastical vocation is needed here, because those fellows have been reared on such examples, and they can give aid. I will immediately send thither the Russian doctor, Martyn-Solsky."
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