w times questioningly, with expectant and hostile looks, he
understood that he was in her way and that she was impatiently expecting
him to leave.

"I am going to stay here over night," said he, with a smile. "I must
speak with my godfather. And then it is rather lonesome in my house
alone."

"Then go and tell Marfusha to make the bed for you in the corner room,"
Lubov hastened to advise him.

"I shall."

He arose and went out of the dining-room. And he soon heard that Taras
asked his sister about something in a low voice.

"About me!" he thought. Suddenly this wicked thought flashed through
his mind: "It were but right to listen and hear what wise people have to
say."

He laughed softly, and, stepping on tiptoe, went noiselessly into the
other room, also adjoining the dining-room. There was no light there,
and only a thin band of light from the dining-room, passing through the
unclosed door, lay on the dark floor. Softly, with sinking heart and
malicious smile, Foma walked up close to the door and stopped.

"He's a clumsy fellow," said Taras.

Then came Lubov's lowered and hasty speech:

"He was carousing here all the time. He carried on dreadfully! It all
started somehow of a sudden. The first thing he did was to thrash
the son-in-law of the Vice-Governor at the Club. Papa had to take the
greatest pains to hush up the scandal, and it was a good thing that
the Vice-Governor's son-in-law is a man of very bad reputation. He is a
card-sharper and in general a shady personality, yet it cost father more
than two thousand roubles. And while papa was busying himself about that
scandal Foma came near drowning a whole company on the Volga."

"Ha-ha! How monstrous! And that same man busies himself with
investigating as to the meaning of life."

"On another occasion he was carousing on a steamer with a company of
people like himself. Suddenly he said to them: 'Pray to God! I'll fling
every one of you overboard!' He is frightfully strong. They screamed,
while he said: 'I want to serve my country. I want to clear the earth of
base people.'"

"Really? That's clever!"

"He's a terrible man! How many wild pranks he has perpetrated during
these years! How much money he has squandered!"

"And, tell me, on what conditions does father manage his affairs for
him? Do you know?"

"No, I don't. He has a full power of attorney. Why do you ask?"

"Simply so. It's a solid business. Of course it is conducted in purely
Russia