a little cross-eyed and sleepy, for he will
want to get drunk, and his wife won't give him any money; and at such
a time, a ten-kopek piece in his hand will--he will become more fit
to reason with, and then the cloak, and that--" Thus argued Akakiy
Akakievitch with himself, regained his courage, and waited until the
first Sunday, when, seeing from afar that Petrovitch's wife had left the
house, he went straight to him.

Petrovitch's eye was, indeed, very much askew after Saturday: his head
drooped, and he was very sleepy; but for all that, as soon as he knew
what it was a question of, it seemed as though Satan jogged his memory.
"Impossible," said he: "please to order a new one." Thereupon Akakiy
Akakievitch handed over the ten-kopek piece. "Thank you, sir; I will
drink your good health," said Petrovitch: "but as for the cloak, don't
trouble yourself about it; it is good for nothing. I will make you a
capital new one, so let us settle about it now."

Akakiy Akakievitch was still for mending it; but Petrovitch would not
hear of it, and said, "I shall certainly have to make you a new one, and
you may depend upon it that I shall do my best. It may even be, as the
fashion goes, that the collar can be fastened by silver hooks under a
flap."

Then Akakiy Akakievitch saw that it was impossible to get along without
a new cloak, and his spirit sank utterly. How, in fact, was it to be
done? Where was the money to come from? He might, to be sure, depend,
in part, upon his present at Christmas; but that money had long been
allotted beforehand. He must have some new trousers, and pay a debt of
long standing to the shoemaker for putting new tops to his old boots,
and he must order three shirts from the seamstress, and a couple of
pieces of linen. In short, all his money must be spent; and even if the
director should be so kind as to order him to receive forty-five rubles
instead of forty, or even fifty, it would be a mere nothing, a mere drop
in the ocean towards the funds necessary for a cloak: although he
knew that Petrovitch was often wrong-headed enough to blurt out some
outrageous price, so that even his own wife could not refrain from
exclaiming, "Have you lost your senses, you fool?" At one time he would
not work at any price, and now it was quite likely that he had named a
higher sum than the cloak would cost.

But although he knew that Petrovitch would undertake to make a cloak
for eighty rubles, still, where was he to