and turned over the leaves of his manuscript with a thoughtful air.
"Oh, by the way," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, "I wanted to ask you, in case you should meet Pomorsky, to say a little word to him for me; that I should very much like to be appointed a member of the Commission of the Combined Agencies of the Mutual Credit-Balance of the Railways of the South." To Stepan Arkadyevitch the name[1] of this position which was so dear to his heart was already very familiar, and he could rattle it off with great rapidity and without making a mistake.
Alekseï Aleksandrovitch asked what the functions of this new commission were to be, and then he reflected. It seemed to him that the existence of this commission was directly opposed to his projects of reform. But as the operations of this commission were very complicated, and his own projects of reform occupied a very vast field, he felt that he could not settle this question at a glance, and, taking off his pince-nez, he said:—
"Without doubt I could speak to him; but why are you especially desirous to have this place?"
"The salary is good,—nine thousand rubles,—and my means...."
"Nine thousand rubles!" repeated Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, and he frowned. The high emolument of this position reminded him that Stepan Arkadyevitch's supposititious function was directly opposed to the principal feature of his projects, which always inclined to economy.
"I believe, and I show in my pamphlet, that in our day these enormous salaries are signs of the defectiveness of the economic assiette of our administration."
"Yes; but what would you have?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "Now let us see! A bank director gets ten thousand, he is worth it; or an engineer gets twenty thousand. These are not sinecures."
"I opine that salaries are payments for merchandise, and ought to be subject to the law of supply and demand. If salaries are not subject to this law,—if, for example,
- ↑ Chlen komissii ot soyedinennava agenstva kreditno-vzaïmnava balansa yuzhno-zheleznuikh dorog.
