vsky?"

"Of course not."

"Nor the general? Ha, ha, ha!"

"Nonsense!" said the prince, angrily, turning round upon him.

"Quite so, nonsense! Ha, ha, ha! dear me! He did amuse me, did the
general! We went off on the hot scent to Wilkin's together, you know;
but I must first observe that the general was even more thunderstruck
than I myself this morning, when I awoke him after discovering the
theft; so much so that his very face changed--he grew red and then pale,
and at length flew into a paroxysm of such noble wrath that I assure you
I was quite surprised! He is a most generous-hearted man! He tells lies
by the thousands, I know, but it is merely a weakness; he is a man of
the highest feelings; a simple-minded man too, and a man who carries the
conviction of innocence in his very appearance. I love that man, sir; I
may have told you so before; it is a weakness of mine. Well--he suddenly
stopped in the middle of the road, opened out his coat and bared his
breast. 'Search me,' he says, 'you searched Keller; why don't you search
me too? It is only fair!' says he." And all the while his legs and hands
were trembling with anger, and he as white as a sheet all over! So I
said to him, "Nonsense, general; if anybody but yourself had said that
to me, I'd have taken my head, my own head, and put it on a large dish
and carried it round to anyone who suspected you; and I should have
said: 'There, you see that head? It's my head, and I'll go bail with
that head for him! Yes, and walk through the fire for him, too. There,'
says I, 'that's how I'd answer for you, general!' Then he embraced me,
in the middle of the street, and hugged me so tight (crying over me all
the while) that I coughed fit to choke! 'You are the one friend left to
me amid all my misfortunes,' says he. Oh, he's a man of sentiment, that!
He went on to tell me a story of how he had been accused, or suspected,
of stealing five hundred thousand roubles once, as a young man; and how,
the very next day, he had rushed into a burning, blazing house and saved
the very count who suspected him, and Nina Alexandrovna (who was then
a young girl), from a fiery death. The count embraced him, and that was
how he came to marry Nina Alexandrovna, he said. As for the money, it
was found among the ruins next day in an English iron box with a secret
lock; it had got under the floor somehow, and if it had not been for the
fire it would never have been found! The whole thing is, of c