rowing himself on the back of the chair.
He made the bones of his slender hand crack, stretched his legs under
the table, and adjusting his mustache, asked Nikolay: "Are you Andrey
Nakhodka?"

"Yes!" answered Nikolay, moving forward. The Little Russian put out
his hand, took him by the shoulder, and pulled him back.

"He made a mistake; I am Andrey!"

The officer raised his hand, and threatening Vyesovshchikov with his
little finger, said:

"Take care!"

He began to search among his papers. From the street the bright,
moonlit night looked on through the window with soulless eyes. Some one
was loafing about outside the window, and the snow crunched under his
tread.

"You, Nakhodka, you have been searched for political offenses before?"
asked the officer.

"Yes, I was searched in Rostov and Saratov. Only there the gendarmes
addressed me as 'Mr.'"

The officer winked his right eye, rubbed it, and showing his fine
teeth, said:

"And do you happen to know, MR. Nakhodka--yes, you, MR. Nakhodka--who
those scoundrels are who distribute criminal proclamations and books in
the factory, eh?"

The Little Russian swayed his body, and with a broad smile on his face
was about to say something, when the irritating voice of Nikolay again
rang out:

"This is the first time we have seen scoundrels here!"

Silence ensued. There was a moment of breathless suspense. The scar
on the mother's face whitened, and her right eyebrow traveled upward.
Rybin's black beard quivered strangely. He dropped his eyes, and
slowly scratched one hand with the other.

"Take this dog out of here!" said the officer.

Two gendarmes seized Nikolay under the arm and rudely pulled him into
the kitchen. There he planted his feet firmly on the floor and shouted:

"Stop! I am going to put my coat on."

The police commissioner came in from the yard and said:

"There is nothing out there. We searched everywhere!"

"Well, of course!" exclaimed the officer, laughing. "I knew it!
There's an experienced man here, it goes without saying."

The mother listened to his thin, dry voice, and looking with terror
into the yellow face, felt an enemy in this man, an enemy without pity,
with a heart full of aristocratic disdain of the people. Formerly she
had but rarely seen such persons, and now she had almost forgotten they
existed.

"Then this is the man whom Pavel and his friends have provoked," she
thought.

"I place you, MR. Andrey Onisimov