This was the same long-familiar tone his father always took with him, and Seryozha had learned by now to fall in with it.

His father always talked to him--so Seryozha felt--as though he were addressing some boy of his own imagination, one of those boys that exist in books, utterly unlike himself.

And Seryozha always tried with his father to act being the story-book boy.

"You understand that, I hope?" said his father.

"Yes, papa," answered Seryozha, acting the part of the imaginary boy.