Merchant with newspaper: “Didya see the business, Fedor Kuzmich, about cholera going beyond that Toulon thing.”
Second merchant: “Yes, kinsman, what good thing ever makes its way to us…”
Yardman: “Hey, mister merchants! The newspaper types are all lying to us, because the same cholera is constantly here at our owner’s place and if it weren’t for me, duckies, it would have gone further, but I keep it strictly in the back yard!”
(Razvlechenie, Moscow, 1884)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 