chikov possessed a family). Next, he shuffled to the
window, and, tapping one of its panes, shouted the name of "Proshka."
Immediately some one ran quickly into the hall, and, after much stamping
of feet, burst into the room. This was Proshka--a thirteen-year-old
youngster who was shod with boots of such dimensions as almost to engulf
his legs as he walked. The reason why he had entered thus shod was
that Plushkin only kept one pair of boots for the whole of his domestic
staff. This universal pair was stationed in the hall of the mansion, so
that any servant who was summoned to the house might don the said boots
after wading barefooted through the mud of the courtyard, and enter
the parlour dry-shod--subsequently leaving the boots where he had found
them, and departing in his former barefooted condition. Indeed, had any
one, on a slushy winter's morning, glanced from a window into the said
courtyard, he would have seen Plushkin's servitors performing saltatory
feats worthy of the most vigorous of stage-dancers.

"Look at that boy's face!" said Plushkin to Chichikov as he pointed to
Proshka. "It is stupid enough, yet, lay anything aside, and in a trice
he will have stolen it. Well, my lad, what do you want?"

He paused a moment or two, but Proshka made no reply.

"Come, come!" went on the old man. "Set out the samovar, and then give
Mavra the key of the store-room--here it is--and tell her to get out
some loaf sugar for tea. Here! Wait another moment, fool! Is the devil
in your legs that they itch so to be off? Listen to what more I have to
tell you. Tell Mavra that the sugar on the outside of the loaf has gone
bad, so that she must scrape it off with a knife, and NOT throw away
the scrapings, but give them to the poultry. Also, see that you yourself
don't go into the storeroom, or I will give you a birching that you
won't care for. Your appetite is good enough already, but a better one
won't hurt you. Don't even TRY to go into the storeroom, for I shall be
watching you from this window."

"You see," the old man added to Chichikov, "one can never trust these
fellows." Presently, when Proshka and the boots had departed, he fell
to gazing at his guest with an equally distrustful air, since certain
features in Chichikov's benevolence now struck him as a little open to
question, and he had begin to think to himself: "After all, the
devil only knows who he is--whether a braggart, like most of these
spendthrifts, or a fello