chief of
police in the victoria, tore off to the scene of the fray in order to
take part in it. He esteemed people who were sedate, stout and elderly,
who came singly, in secret, peeped in cautiously from the ante-room
into the drawing room, fearing to meet with acquaintances, and very
soon and with great haste went away, tipping him generously. Such he
always styled "Your Excellency."

And so, while taking the light grey overcoat off Yarchenko, he sombrely
and with much significance snarled back in answer to Lichonin's banter:

"I am no citizen here, but the bouncer."

"Upon which I have the honour to congratulate you," answered Lichonin
with a polite bow.

There were many people in the drawing room. The clerks, having danced
their fill, were sitting, red and wet, near their ladies, rapidly
fanning themselves with their handkerchiefs; they smelt strongly of old
goats' wool. Mishka the Singer and his friend the Book-keeper, both
bald, with soft, downy hairs around the denuded skulls, both with
turbid, nacreous, intoxicated eyes, were sitting opposite each other,
leaning with their elbows on a little marble table, and were constantly
trying to start singing in unison with such quavering and galloping
voices as though some one was very, very often striking them in the
cervical vertebrae:

"They fe-e-e-l the tru-u-u-u-uth!"

while Emma Edwardovna and Zociya with all their might were exhorting
them not to behave indecently. Roly-Poly was peacefully slumbering on a
chair, his head hanging down, having laid one long leg over the other
and grasped the sharp knee with his clasped hands.

The girls at once recognized some of the students and ran to meet them.

"Tamarochka, your husband has come--Volodenka. And my husband
too!--Mishka!" cried Niura piercingly, hanging herself on the neck of
the lanky, big-nosed, solemn Petrovsky. "Hello, Mishenka. Why haven't
you come for so long? I grew weary of waiting for you."

Yarchenko with a feeling of awkwardness was looking about him on all
sides.

"We'd like to have in some way ... don't you know ... a little private
room," he said with delicacy to Emma Edwardovna who had approached.
"And give us some sort of red wine, please ... And then, some coffee as
well ... You know yourself."

Yarchenko always instilled confidence in servants and MAITRES D'HOTEL,
with his dashing clothes and polite but seigniorial ways. Emma
Edwardovna started nodding her head willingly, just li