office
Post-Office Receiving Clerk (priyomshik)
post-office clerk
also: приемщик в почтовом отделении, priyomshik
A low-ranking clerk at a post office who receives and processes mail and parcels; the punchline undercutting the second passenger's pose as a man who might keep a private library.
Reading notes
- In the Railway Carriage §13 I'm a clerk at the post office
The second vignette's punchline: a subscription to every major paper and journal in the empire turns out to belong to a low-ranking postal clerk, not a library patron or man of means.