amsonitch with some other gentlemen, sir!"

The Subotchevs were less disturbed than their servants, although the
eruption of four full-sized men into their drawing-room, spacious though
it was, did in fact surprise them somewhat. But Paklin soon reassured
them, introducing Nejdanov, Solomin, and Markelov in turn, as good quiet
people, not "governmental."

Fomishka and Fimishka had a horror of governmental, that is to say,
official people.

Snandulia, who appeared at her brother's request, was far more disturbed
and agitated than the old couple.

They asked, both together and in exactly the same words, if their guests
would be pleased to partake of some tea, chocolate, or an effervescent
drink with jam, but learning that they did not require anything, having
just lunched with the merchant Golushkin and that they were returning
there to dinner, they ceased pressing them, and, folding their arms
in exactly the same manner across their stomachs, they entered into
conversation. It was a little slow at first, but soon grew livelier.

Paklin amused them very much by relating the well known Gogol anecdote
about a superintendent of police, who managed to push his way into a
church already so packed with people that a pin could scarcely drop,
and about a pie which turned out to be no other than this same
superintendent himself. The old people laughed till the tears rolled
down their cheeks. They had exactly the same shrill laugh and both
went red in the face from the effort. Paklin noticed that people of the
Subotchev type usually went into fits of laughter over quotations
from Gogol, but as his object at the present moment was not so much
in amusing them as in showing them off to his friends, he changed his
tactics and soon managed to put them in an excellent humour.

Fomishka produced a very ancient carved wooden snuff-box and showed it
to the visitors with great pride. At one time one could have discerned
about thirty-six little human figures in various attitudes carved on its
lid, but they were so erased as to be scarcely visible now. Fomishka,
however, still saw them and could even count them. He would point to one
and say, "Just look! this one is staring out of the window.... He has
thrust his head out!" but the place indicated by his fat little finger
with the nail raised was just as smooth as the rest of the box. He then
turned their attention to an oil painting hanging on the wall just above
his head. It represente