is distilled on this estate? Show your books!’ He stammered this and that. ‘Ei, off with him!’ they shouted, and then they seized him, bound him, carried him to town, and there he remained in prison for a year and a half.”

“Well, I declare!” said the general.

Ulinka clasped her hands.

“His wife, your excellency, began to make a fuss. But what can a woman do when she is young, and hasn’t been tried in the furnace of experience, so to speak? Fortunately, there were some kind people on hand who advised her to go to see the justice of the peace. The German recovered his freedom, your excellency, on condition that he spent two thousand roubles on a complimentary banquet. And after the dinner, when they all were pretty thoroughly drunk, they said to him, ‘Here, you see! You scorned us! You wanted to see us all properly shaved and washed. No, you must love us while we are dirty, for everyone will like us when we are clean.”

The general burst into a roar of laughter, but a pained expression appeared on the girl’s noble face.

“Ah, papa! I do not understand how you can laugh,” said she. “These dishonourable deeds cause me sorrow and nothing else. When I see deception openly practised in the sight of all, when I see that the perpetrators are not punished by universal scorn, I do not know what takes place within me, but I become angry, and I think and think——” And here she suddenly burst into tears.

“Only please don’t be angry with us,” said the general; “we are not to blame in this matter, eh?” he went on, turning to Tchitchikoff. “Kiss me, my dear, and go to your room. I am about to dress for dinner. I hope,” he added, looking Tchitchikoff in the face, “that you will stay to dine with me.”

“If your excellency will only——”

“Stay without ceremony. I have plenty to offer you, thank God. There is some cabbage-soup.”

With a deprecatory motion of the hands Tchitchikoff bent his head with respect and gratitude, so that all the objects in the room where hidden from his view for a moment, merely the tips of his boots remaining visible to him. When he raised his head once more, after remaining in this reverent attitude for a few moments, Ulinka was no longer visible. She had vanished. In her stead there stood before him a gigantic valet, with thick moustaches and whiskers, who was holding a silver washbasin and a towel in his hands.

“You will permit me to dress in your presence?” asked the general.

“Not only to dress in my presence, but to do anything which your excellency sees fit.”

Pulling off his dressing-gown with one hand, and pulling up the sleeves of his shirt, the general began his ablutions, splashing and snorting like a duck. The soapy water flew about in all directions.

“How does it go?” said he, as he wiped his neck on all sides. “ ‘You must love us while we are clean’——”

“Dirty, your excellency.”

“Yes, ‘while we are dirty, for everyone will love us when we are clean.’ Very, very good! They love, they love, they actually love encouragement. Stroke, stroke them! Without encouragement, they won’t steal, eh? Ha, ha, ha!”

Tchitchikoff was in indescribable spirits, and a fresh inspiration suddenly came to him. “The general is a jolly fellow, and a good-natured one. I’ll try my dodge,” thought he; and then perceiving that the valet