Page 924 - the-brothers-karamazov

having smiled. ‘I’ll complain to your masters of you, so that
for the future you mayn’t waste your time on such general
propositions, instead of sitting at your books and learning
your lessons.’ He didn’t complain to the masters, that was
a joke, but the matter noised abroad and came to the ears
of the masters. Their ears are long, you know! The classi-
cal master, Kolbasnikov, was particularly shocked about it,
but Dardanelov got me off again. But Kolbasnikov is savage
with everyone now like a green ass. Did you know, Ilusha,
he is just married, got a dowry of a thousand roubles, and
his bride’s a regular fright of the first rank and the last de-
gree. The third-class fellows wrote an epigram on it:
Astounding news has reached the class,
Kolbasnikov has been an ass.
And so on, awfully funny, I’ll bring it to you later on. I
say nothing against Dardanelov, he is a learned man, there’s
no doubt about it. I respect men like that and it’s not be-
cause he stood up for me.’
‘But you took him down about the founders of Troy!’
Smurov put in suddenly, proud of Krassotkin at such a
moment. He was particularly pleased with the story of the
goose.
‘Did you really take him down?’ the captain inquired, in
a flattering way. ‘On the question who founded Troy? We
heard of it, Ilusha told me about it at the time.’
‘He knows everything, father, he knows more than any of
us!’ put in Ilusha; ‘he only pretends to be like that, but really
he is top in every subject..’
Ilusha looked at Kolya with infinite happiness.