, your Excellency," Polzuhin interposed.
"Honour bright, I will do my best!"

It was too much for the director.

"Tell me," he said, smiling contemptuously, "why was it you didn't
apply to me direct but thought fitting instead to trouble ladies
as a preliminary?"

"I didn't know that it would be disagreeable to you," Polzuhin
answered, and he was embarrassed. "But, your Excellency, if you
attach no significance to letters of recommendation, I can give you
a testimonial. . . ."

He drew from his pocket a letter and handed it to the director. At
the bottom of the testimonial, which was written in official language
and handwriting, stood the signature of the Governor. Everything
pointed to the Governor's having signed it unread, simply to get
rid of some importunate lady.

"There's nothing for it, I bow to his authority. . . I obey . . ."
said the director, reading the testimonial, and he heaved a sigh.

"Send in your application to-morrow. . . . There's nothing to be
done. . . ."

And when Polzuhin had gone out, the director abandoned himself to
a feeling of repulsion.

"Sneak!" he hissed, pacing from one corner to the other. "He has
got what he wanted, one way or the other, the good-for-nothing
toady! Making up to the ladies! Reptile! Creature!"

The director spat loudly in the direction of the door by which
Polzuhin had departed, and was immediately overcome with embarrassment,
for at that moment a lady, the wife of the Superintendent of the
Provincial Treasury, walked in at the door.

"I've come for a tiny minute . . . a tiny minute. . ." began the
lady. "Sit down, friend, and listen to me attentively. . . . Well,
I've been told you have a post vacant. . . . To-day or to-morrow
you will receive a visit from a young man called Polzuhin. . . ."

The lady chattered on, while the director gazed at her with lustreless,
stupefied eyes like a man on the point of fainting, gazed and smiled
from politeness.

And the next day when Vremensky came to his office it was a long
time before the director could bring himself to tell the truth. He
hesitated, was incoherent, and could not think how to begin or what
to say. He wanted to apologize to the schoolmaster, to tell him the
whole truth, but his tongue halted like a drunkard's, his ears
burned, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with vexation and resentment
that he should have to play such an absurd part--in his own office,
before his subordinate. He suddenly brought