kes me as
strange that my right eye," this one-eyed Ivan Ivanovitch always spoke
sarcastically about himself, "does not see Ivan Nikiforovitch, Gospodin
Dovgotchkun."

"He would not come," said the chief of police.

"Why not?"

"It's two years now, glory to God! since they quarrelled; that is, Ivan
Ivanovitch and Ivan Nikiforovitch; and where one goes, the other will
not go."

"You don't say so!" Thereupon one-eyed Ivan Ivanovitch raised his eye
and clasped his hands. "Well, if people with good eyes cannot live in
peace, how am I to live amicably, with my bad one?"

At these words they all laughed at the tops of their voices. Every one
liked one-eyed Ivan Ivanovitch, because he cracked jokes in that style.
A tall, thin man in a frieze coat, with a plaster on his nose, who up to
this time had sat in the corner, and never once altered the expression
of his face, even when a fly lighted on his nose, rose from his seat,
and approached nearer to the crowd which surrounded one-eyed Ivan
Ivanovitch. "Listen," said Ivan Ivanovitch, when he perceived that quite
a throng had collected about him; "suppose we make peace between our
friends. Ivan Ivanovitch is talking with the women and girls; let us
send quietly for Ivan Nikiforovitch and bring them together."

Ivan Ivanovitch's proposal was unanimously agreed to; and it was decided
to send at once to Ivan Nikiforovitch's house, and beg him, at any rate,
to come to the chief of police's for dinner. But the difficult question
as to who was to be intrusted with this weighty commission rendered
all thoughtful. They debated long as to who was the most expert in
diplomatic matters. At length it was unanimously agreed to depute Anton
Prokofievitch to do this business.

But it is necessary, first of all, to make the reader somewhat
acquainted with this noteworthy person. Anton Prokofievitch was a truly
good man, in the fullest meaning of the term. If any one in Mirgorod
gave him a neckerchief or underclothes, he returned thanks; if any one
gave him a fillip on the nose, he returned thanks too. If he was asked,
"Why, Anton Prokofievitch, do you wear a light brown coat with blue
sleeves?" he generally replied, "Ah, you haven't one like it! Wait a
bit, it will soon fade and will be alike all over." And, in point
of fact, the blue cloth, from the effects of the sun, began to turn
cinnamon colour, and became of the same tint as the rest of the coat.
But the strange part of it was that