will be very comfortable there.'

'Have you had a lodge put up then?'

'Why, where the bath-house is,' put in Timofeitch.

'That is next to the bathroom,' Vassily Ivanitch added hurriedly. 'It's
summer now ... I will run over there at once, and make arrangements;
and you, Timofeitch, meanwhile bring in their things. You, Yevgeny, I
shall of course offer my study. _Suum cuique_.'

'There you have him! A comical old chap, and very good-natured,'
remarked Bazarov, directly Vassily Ivanitch had gone. 'Just such a
queer fish as yours, only in another way. He chatters too much.'

'And your mother seems an awfully nice woman,' observed Arkady.

'Yes, there's no humbug about her. You'll see what a dinner she'll give
us.'

'They didn't expect you to-day, sir; they've not brought any beef?'
observed Timofeitch, who was just dragging in Bazarov's box.

'We shall get on very well without beef. It's no use crying for the
moon. Poverty, they say, is no vice.'

'How many serfs has your father?' Arkady asked suddenly.

'The estate's not his, but mother's; there are fifteen serfs, if I
remember.'

'Twenty-two in all,' Timofeitch added, with an air of displeasure.

The flapping of slippers was heard, and Vassily Ivanovitch reappeared.
'In a few minutes your room will be ready to receive you,' he cried
triumphantly. Arkady ... Nikolaitch? I think that is right? And here is
your attendant,' he added, indicating a short-cropped boy, who had come
in with him in a blue full-skirted coat with ragged elbows and a pair
of boots which did not belong to him. 'His name is Fedka. Again, I
repeat, even though my son tells me not to, you mustn't expect great
things. He knows how to fill a pipe, though. You smoke, of course?'

'I generally smoke cigars,' answered Arkady.

'And you do very sensibly. I myself give the preference to cigars, but
in these solitudes it is exceedingly difficult to obtain them.'

'There, that's enough humble pie,' Bazarov interrupted again. 'You'd
much better sit here on the sofa and let us have a look at you.'

Vassily Ivanovitch laughed and sat down. He was very like his son in
face, only his brow was lower and narrower, and his mouth rather wider,
and he was for ever restless, shrugging up his shoulder as though his
coat cut him under the armpits, blinking, clearing his throat, and
gesticulating with his fingers, while his son was distinguished by a
kind of nonchalant immobility.

'Humble-pie!' repeated