been put to
air with the clothes?" Here Ivan Ivanovitch offered his snuff. "May I
ask you to do me the favour?"

"By no means! take it yourself; I will use my own." Thereupon Ivan
Nikiforovitch felt about him, and got hold of his snuff-box. "That
stupid woman! So she hung the gun out to air. That Jew at Sorotchintzi
makes good snuff. I don't know what he puts in it, but it is so very
fragrant. It is a little like tansy. Here, take a little and chew it;
isn't it like tansy?"

"Ivan Nikiforovitch, I want to talk about that gun; what are you going
to do with it? You don't need it."

"Why don't I need it? I might want to go shooting."

"God be with you, Ivan Nikiforovitch! When will you go shooting? At the
millennium, perhaps? So far as I know, or any one can recollect, you
never killed even a duck; yes, and you are not built to go shooting. You
have a dignified bearing and figure; how are you to drag yourself about
the marshes, especially when your garment, which it is not polite to
mention in conversation by name, is being aired at this very moment? No;
you require rest, repose." Ivan Ivanovitch as has been hinted at above,
employed uncommonly picturesque language when it was necessary to
persuade any one. How he talked! Heavens, how he could talk! "Yes, and
you require polite actions. See here, give it to me!"

"The idea! The gun is valuable; you can't find such guns anywhere
nowadays. I bought it of a Turk when I joined the militia; and now,
to give it away all of a sudden! Impossible! It is an indispensable
article."

"Indispensable for what?"

"For what? What if robbers should attack the house?... Indispensable
indeed! Glory to God! I know that a gun stands in my storehouse."

"A fine gun that! Why, Ivan Nikiforovitch, the lock is ruined."

"What do you mean by ruined? It can be set right; all that needs to be
done is to rub it with hemp-oil, so that it may not rust."

"I see in your words, Ivan Nikiforovitch, anything but a friendly
disposition towards me. You will do nothing for me in token of
friendship."

"How can you say, Ivan Ivanovitch, that I show you no friendship? You
ought to be ashamed of yourself. Your oxen pasture on my steppes and I
have never interfered with them. When you go to Poltava, you always ask
for my waggon, and what then? Have I ever refused? Your children climb
over the fence into my yard and play with my dogs--I never say anything;
let them play, so long as they touch nothing;