ko, son of Ivan, nobleman, and
landed proprietor of Mirgorod."

After the reading of the plaint was concluded, the judge approached
Ivanovitch, took him by the button, and began to talk to him after this
fashion: "What are you doing, Ivan Ivanovitch? Fear God! throw away
that plaint, let it go! may Satan carry it off! Better take Ivan
Nikiforovitch by the hand and kiss him, buy some Santurinski or
Nikopolski liquor, make a punch, and call me in. We will drink it up
together and forget all unpleasantness."

"No, Demyan Demyanovitch! it's not that sort of an affair," said Ivan
Ivanovitch, with the dignity which always became him so well; "it is
not an affair which can be arranged by a friendly agreement. Farewell!
Good-day to you, too, gentlemen," he continued with the same dignity,
turning to them all. "I hope that my plaint will lead to proper action
being taken;" and out he went, leaving all present in a state of
stupefaction.

The judge sat down without uttering a word; the secretary took a pinch
of snuff; the clerks upset some broken fragments of bottles which served
for inkstands; and the judge himself, in absence of mind, spread out a
puddle of ink upon the table with his finger.

"What do you say to this, Dorofei Trofimovitch?" said the judge, turning
to the assistant after a pause.

"I've nothing to say," replied the clerk.

"What things do happen!" continued the judge. He had not finished saying
this before the door creaked and the front half of Ivan Nikiforovitch
presented itself in the court-room; the rest of him remaining in the
ante-room. The appearance of Ivan Nikiforovitch, and in court too,
seemed so extraordinary that the judge screamed; the secretary stopped
reading; one clerk, in his frieze imitation of a dress-coat, took his
pen in his lips; and the other swallowed a fly. Even the constable on
duty and the watchman, a discharged soldier who up to that moment had
stood by the door scratching about his dirty tunic, with chevrons on its
arm, dropped his jaw and trod on some one's foot.

"What chance brings you here? How is your health, Ivan Nikiforovitch?"

But Ivan Nikiforovitch was neither dead nor alive; for he was stuck fast
in the door, and could not take a step either forwards or backwards. In
vain did the judge shout into the ante-room that some one there should
push Ivan Nikiforovitch forward into the court-room. In the ante-room
there was only one old woman with a petition, who, in spit