good-day to
you."

"Hold on, hold on!" exclaimed Sobakevitch, retaining his guest's hand,
and at the same moment treading heavily upon his toes--so heavily,
indeed, that Chichikov gasped and danced with the pain.

"I BEG your pardon!" said Sobakevitch hastily. "Evidently I have hurt
you. Pray sit down again."

"No," retorted Chichikov. "I am merely wasting my time, and must be
off."

"Oh, sit down just for a moment. I have something more agreeable to
say." And, drawing closer to his guest, Sobakevitch whispered in his
ear, as though communicating to him a secret: "How about twenty-five
roubles?"

"No, no, no!" exclaimed Chichikov. "I won't give you even a QUARTER of
that. I won't advance another kopeck."

For a while Sobakevitch remained silent, and Chichikov did the same.
This lasted for a couple of minutes, and, meanwhile, the aquiline-nosed
Bagration gazed from the wall as though much interested in the
bargaining.

"What is your outside price?" at length said Sobakevitch.

"Two and a half roubles."

"Then you seem to rate a human soul at about the same value as a boiled
turnip. At least give me THREE roubles."

"No, I cannot."

"Pardon me, but you are an impossible man to deal with. However, even
though it will mean a dead loss to me, and you have not shown a very
nice spirit about it, I cannot well refuse to please a friend. I suppose
a purchase deed had better be made out in order to have everything in
order?"

"Of course."

"Then for that purpose let us repair to the town."

The affair ended in their deciding to do this on the morrow, and to
arrange for the signing of a deed of purchase. Next, Chichikov requested
a list of the peasants; to which Sobakevitch readily agreed. Indeed, he
went to his writing-desk then and there, and started to indite a
list which gave not only the peasants' names, but also their late
qualifications.

Meanwhile Chichikov, having nothing else to do, stood looking at the
spacious form of his host; and as he gazed at his back as broad as that
of a cart horse, and at the legs as massive as the iron standards which
adorn a street, he could not help inwardly ejaculating:

"Truly God has endowed you with much! Though not adjusted with nicety,
at least you are strongly built. I wonder whether you were born a
bear or whether you have come to it through your rustic life, with its
tilling of crops and its trading with peasants? Yet no; I believe that,
even if you had receiv