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w who is lying merely in order to get some tea out of me." Finally, his circumspection, combined with a desire to test his guest, led him to remark that it might be well to complete the transaction IMMEDIATELY, since he had not overmuch confidence in humanity, seeing that a man might be alive to-day and dead to-morrow. To this Chichikov assented readily enough--merely adding that he should like first of all to be furnished with a list of the dead souls. This reassured Plushkin as to his guest's intention of doing business, so he got out his keys, approached a cupboard, and, having pulled back the door, rummaged among the cups and glasses with which it was filled. At length he said: "I cannot find it now, but I used to possess a splendid bottle of liquor. Probably the servants have drunk it all, for they are such thieves. Oh no: perhaps this is it!" Looking up, Chichikov saw that Plushkin had extracted a decanter coated with dust. "My late wife made the stuff," went on the old man, "but that rascal of a housekeeper went and threw away a lot of it, and never even replaced the stopper. Consequently bugs and other nasty creatures got into the decanter, but I cleaned it out, and now beg to offer you a glassful." The idea of a drink from such a receptacle was too much for Chichikov, so he excused himself on the ground that he had just had luncheon. "You have just had luncheon?" re-echoed Plushkin. "Now, THAT shows how invariably one can tell a man of good society, wheresoever one may be. A man of that kind never eats anything--he always says that he has had enough. Very different that from the ways of a rogue, whom one can never satisfy, however much one may give him. For instance, that captain of mine is constantly begging me to let him have a meal--though he is about as much my nephew as I am his grandfather. As it happens, there is never a bite of anything in the house, so he has to go away empty. But about the list of those good-for-nothing souls--I happen to possess such a list, since I have drawn one up in readiness for the next revision." With that Plushkin donned his spectacles, and once more started to rummage in the cupboard, and to smother his guest with dust as he untied successive packages of papers--so much so that his victim burst out sneezing. Finally he extracted a much-scribbled document in which the names of the deceased peasants lay as close-packed as a cloud of midges, for there were a hundr
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