ain all this God only
knows, but the fact remains that there had fallen into the hands of
those authorities information concerning matters of which Chichikov had
believed only himself and the four walls to be aware. True, for a
time these matters remained within the cognisance of none but the
functionaries concerned, and failed to reach Chichikov's ears; but at
length a letter from a confidential friend gave him reason to think that
the fat was about to fall into the fire. Said the letter briefly: "Dear
sir, I beg to advise you that possibly legal trouble is pending, but
that you have no cause for uneasiness, seeing that everything will
be attended to by yours very truly." Yet, in spite of its tenor, the
epistle reassured its recipient. "What a genius the fellow is!" thought
Chichikov to himself. Next, to complete his satisfaction, his tailor
arrived with the new suit which he had ordered. Not without a certain
sense of pride did our hero inspect the frockcoat of smoked grey shot
with flame colour and look at it from every point of view, and then
try on the breeches--the latter fitting him like a picture, and quite
concealing any deficiencies in the matter of his thighs and calves
(though, when buckled behind, they left his stomach projecting like a
drum). True, the customer remarked that there appeared to be a slight
tightness under the right armpit, but the smiling tailor only rejoined
that that would cause the waist to fit all the better. "Sir," he said
triumphantly, "you may rest assured that the work has been executed
exactly as it ought to have been executed. No one, except in St.
Petersburg, could have done it better." As a matter of fact, the tailor
himself hailed from St. Petersburg, but called himself on his signboard
"Foreign Costumier from London and Paris"--the truth being that by
the use of a double-barrelled flourish of cities superior to mere
"Karlsruhe" and "Copenhagen" he designed to acquire business and cut out
his local rivals.

Chichikov graciously settled the man's account, and, as soon as he had
gone, paraded at leisure, and con amore, and after the manner of an
artist of aesthetic taste, before the mirror. Somehow he seemed to look
better than ever in the suit, for his cheeks had now taken on a still
more interesting air, and his chin an added seductiveness, while his
white collar lent tone to his neck, the blue satin tie heightened the
effect of the collar, the fashionable dickey set off the tie