The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1333: Chapter 183: Offering Supreme Loyalty to Colonel Hestingov (2)

“That’s only natural, that’s only natural!”

The Police Chief echoed: “You don’t know the expense until you’re the one managing a household. I, Skornikov, have held an official post after all, governing a region, so I can understand these difficulties. You see, although the housing subsidy has never reached my hands, I’ve never complained. If there is money, it’s thanks to the bountiful grace of His Majesty the Tsar; if there isn’t, well, it’s as it should be.”

After speaking, the Police Chief cautiously inquired: “For a minor official like me, it’s only right to endure some hardship and exhaustion. After all, suffering a bit is to do one’s best in work and to have something to hope for in the future. Before, when I went to the provincial city for errands, I heard that the Provincial Prosecutor at your level has an annual salary of 600 Rubles, plus an additional 550 Rubles in housing and food allowances each year. Of course, this could just be rumors from the lower ranks; in reality, it shouldn’t be as high as that, right?”

If the Police Chief asked about anything else, Arthur might not necessarily know.

But when it came to the salaries of Russian officials, York, a miser who attended the University of London, had studied the matter thoroughly.

Moreover, he had resources like Shubinsky by his side. Whether it was literature or personal connections, Arthur understood it all perfectly.

Even a Provincial Prosecutor with an annual income of less than 1200 Rubles could make the Police Chief envious…

If he knew that the Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom had an annual salary of up to 45000 Rubles, plus a 2000 Ruble housing subsidy, that would be something else entirely!

Arthur put on the airs of someone from a big city: “Annual salary plus subsidies only comes to 1150 Rubles; a first-class province is indeed a first-class province. I may not know how much the Prosecutors in St. Petersburg and Moscow earn annually, but I have an old acquaintance working at the tax office in the Irkutsk Province, also a Sixth Rank official, with a fixed annual salary of 750 Rubles and an additional 1200 Rubles in allowances each year.”

A trace of undisguised envy and yearning flashed in the Police Chief’s eyes as he stammered: “Colonel, your acquaintance really receives such generous allowances?”

Arthur smiled slightly, put down the teacup, and calmly wiped his lips: “Working in the financial sector, the closer you are to the money, the greater the benefits all around. Even you, I tell you, even I, upon hearing of his income, wish I could find some fault in him and exile him to Siberia. Oh no, Irkutsk is already Siberia, this Bastard (German, literal: illegitimate child, faithful and elegant translation: lowborn, son of a bitch), he’s not afraid of this magic wand of mine.”

The Police Chief happily played the sycophant: “Oh, why wouldn’t everyone hope to go to the provincial or departmental level, to serve in bigger places.”

To his surprise, Arthur frowned at these words: “What you said is not right. You said there are benefits to serving at the provincial level, which I won’t dispute. But saying there are benefits to serving at the departmental level, well, I must talk about that.”

In this piece, Arthur subtly let the Police Chief know ‘I hold a post at the department,’ even he himself hadn’t realized this, but he was eagerly wanting to hear the inside stories of various departments in St. Petersburg: “Please… please enlighten me.”

Arthur snorted: “I don’t understand what benefits there are in serving in the department, there’s no source of income. But in the Provincial Government, Civil Affairs Office, or tax office, the situation is entirely different. Over there, you’ll see a person hiding in a remote corner, scribbling something. His tailcoat is incredibly dirty, and his face is something people would want to spit on. But when you check after office hours, you’ll see how such a despicable person resides in such a beautiful villa! If you send him a set of gilded porcelain teacups, he won’t even dignify it with a glance! You bring these things to meet him, and he will sure say: ‘These kinds of gifts are only suitable for doctors.’”

You need to give him a pair of fine horses, or a spring-loaded carriage, or a beaver fur worth three hundred Rubles. Don’t be fooled by such a person speaking softly: ‘Please lend your noble knife to sharpen my pen.’ But in private, he strips the applicants down to their last shirts. True, on the surface, everyone is at a clean and straightforward government office; everything is clear as day. But if it truly were like that, the Provincial Government would never in its lifetime dream of mahogany tables, nor would they encounter department heads who must be addressed with honorifics. Honestly, I have to admit, this situation really angers me. If it weren’t for my exalted and respected position, I would have resigned long ago.”

At this point, Arthur picked up the teacup and looked around: “In the end, although Druiysk is small, it’s local, it still counts as a small provincial government here, right? In my view, if you exchanged a Cavalry Colonel from St. Petersburg for your position as Police Chief in Druiysk, you might not even want to trade!”

Arthur’s words were full of sarcasm, and every sentence had an ironic flavor, but the Police Chief didn’t dare to reply.

He suddenly began to resent his old father-in-law; the imperial envoy sent from St. Petersburg was indeed not someone he could easily handle at his level.

How did this seem like a young man of twenty-five or six, he was actually more difficult to serve than those fifty or sixty-year-old veteran bureaucrats!

The white fox on the snowy plain, the beaver in the river dam, combined couldn’t match his craftiness!

Trying to find something to say, the Police Chief, sweating coldly, said: “Col… Colonel, you must be joking. Even if there were ten of me stacked together, I couldn’t compare to you as a Colonel! By the way, your… your meal, did it suit your taste? If there was anything amiss, please let me know, and I’ll immediately arrange for something else…”