ll. . . ."

After administering to himself several such lectures Podtyagin, the
head ticket collector, begins to feel an irresistible impulse to
get to work. It is past one o'clock at night, but in spite of that
he wakes the ticket collectors and with them goes up and down the
railway carriages, inspecting the tickets.

"T-t-t-ickets . . . P-p-p-please!" he keeps shouting, briskly
snapping the clippers.

Sleepy figures, shrouded in the twilight of the railway carriages,
start, shake their heads, and produce their tickets.

"T-t-t-tickets, please!" Podtyagin addresses a second-class passenger,
a lean, scraggy-looking man, wrapped up in a fur coat and a rug and
surrounded with pillows. "Tickets, please!"

The scraggy-looking man makes no reply. He is buried in sleep. The
head ticket-collector touches him on the shoulder and repeats
impatiently: "T-t-tickets, p-p-please!"

The passenger starts, opens his eyes, and gazes in alarm at Podtyagin.

"What? . . . Who? . . . Eh?"

"You're asked in plain language: t-t-tickets, p-p-please! If you
please!"

"My God!" moans the scraggy-looking man, pulling a woebegone face.
"Good Heavens! I'm suffering from rheumatism. . . . I haven't slept
for three nights! I've just taken morphia on purpose to get to
sleep, and you . . . with your tickets! It's merciless, it's inhuman!
If you knew how hard it is for me to sleep you wouldn't disturb me
for such nonsense. . . . It's cruel, it's absurd! And what do you
want with my ticket! It's positively stupid!"

Podtyagin considers whether to take offence or not--and decides
to take offence.

"Don't shout here! This is not a tavern!"

"No, in a tavern people are more humane. . ." coughs the passenger.
"Perhaps you'll let me go to sleep another time! It's extraordinary:
I've travelled abroad, all over the place, and no one asked for my
ticket there, but here you're at it again and again, as though the
devil were after you. . . ."

"Well, you'd better go abroad again since you like it so much."

"It's stupid, sir! Yes! As though it's not enough killing the
passengers with fumes and stuffiness and draughts, they want to
strangle us with red tape, too, damn it all! He must have the ticket!
My goodness, what zeal! If it were of any use to the company--but
half the passengers are travelling without a ticket!"

"Listen, sir!" cries Podtyagin, flaring up. "If you don't leave off
shouting and disturbing the public, I shall be obliged to p