QUICK WIT
According to the London ‘Globe, an ancestor of Tolstoy’s, an army officer, was an excellent mimic. One day he, mas mimicking the Emperor Paul to a group of his friends, when Paul himself entered and for some moments looked on unperceived at the antics of the young man. Tolstoy finally turned, and, beholding the Emperor, he bowed his head and was silent. ‘Go on, sir,’ said Paul. ‘ Continue your performance.’ The young man hesitated a moment, and then, folding his arms and reproducing every gesture and intonation of his sovereign, he said Tolstoy, you deserve to be degraded, but I remember the thoughtlessness of youth, and you are pardoned.’ The Czar smiled slightly at this speech. ‘ Well, be it so,’ he said.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZT19110518.2.67.4
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New Zealand Tablet, 18 May 1911, Page 934
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124QUICK WIT New Zealand Tablet, 18 May 1911, Page 934
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