standing a bewhiskered butler, armed
with a silver soap-dish and a hand-basin.

"Do you mind if I wash in your presence?" asked the host.

"By no means," replied Chichikov. "Pray do whatsoever you please in that
respect."

Upon that the General fell to scrubbing himself--incidentally, to
sending soapsuds flying in every direction. Meanwhile he seemed so
favourably disposed that Chichikov decided to sound him then and there,
more especially since the butler had left the room.

"May I put to you a problem?" he asked.

"Certainly," replied the General. "What is it?"

"It is this, your Excellency. I have a decrepit old uncle who owns three
hundred souls and two thousand roubles-worth of other property. Also,
except for myself, he possesses not a single heir. Now, although his
infirm state of health will not permit of his managing his property in
person, he will not allow me either to manage it. And the reason for his
conduct--his very strange conduct--he states as follows: 'I do not know
my nephew, and very likely he is a spendthrift. If he wishes to show me
that he is good for anything, let him go and acquire as many souls as
_I_ have acquired; and when he has done that I will transfer to him my
three hundred souls as well."

"The man must be an absolute fool," commented the General.

"Possibly. And were that all, things would not be as bad as they are.
But, unfortunately, my uncle has gone and taken up with his housekeeper,
and has had children by her. Consequently, everything will now pass to
THEM."

"The old man must have taken leave of his senses," remarked the General.
"Yet how _I_ can help you I fail to see."

"Well, I have thought of a plan. If you will hand me over all the dead
souls on your estate--hand them over to me exactly as though they were
still alive, and were purchasable property--I will offer them to the old
man, and then he will leave me his fortune."

At this point the General burst into a roar of laughter such as few can
ever have heard. Half-dressed, he subsided into a chair, threw back his
head, and guffawed until he came near to choking. In fact, the house
shook with his merriment, so much so that the butler and his daughter
came running into the room in alarm.

It was long before he could produce a single articulate word; and
even when he did so (to reassure his daughter and the butler) he kept
momentarily relapsing into spluttering chuckles which made the house
ring and ring again