and say to me, ‘Will you be pleased to accept nomination?’ Let them talk to me about my likeness to an American general after this! I have allowed myself to be caught with the raillery of a tailor! I’ll just see if a single person will come. O dead souls! dead souls! you have enriched me without elevating me, and it is you who are now about to complete my abasement and my ruin!”

Tchitchikoff was raving. He really was in despair, when all at once, three gentlemen belonging to his district approached him, and proposed to him that he should present himself as a candidate. Our hero could not reply at first, so overwhelmed did he feel; then he hesitated, and it was only at the expiration of several minutes that he was able to pronounce with some decision the following honest and pathetic words:

“Divine providence, in sending me through you such an unexpected honour, seems desirous of wiping out all trace of the injustice which I have experienced in the pilgrimage of life. Gentlemen, you cannot be ignorant of the fact that my existence long resembled the condition of a vessel buffeted by storms. You propose trusting to me the helm of the vessel of your interests. You place too much value possibly on the little wisdom with which experience may have endowed me. However, I perceive in this an opportunity for self-sacrifice, and I will not hesitate. Dispose of me.”

Thereupon he shed a few tears, and crumpled his three-cornered hat with both hands; then, obviously much agitated, he passed into an apartment adjoining the grand hall.

The voting for the candidates was immediately proceeded with, and this operation did not last long.

As soon as the voting was finished, there arose from all quarters of the hall a loud and general shout, amid which one plainly heard the words, “We congratulate you!”

“It’s all over,” thought Tchitchikoff, wiping his brow, which was quite moist with emotion. “The honours have fallen to me, and my heart is relieved of an immense weight.” And his bearing as he re-entered the hall evinced what a lively sentiment of personal dignity he felt at that moment.

“Gentlemen,” he said to the throng which watched him as he passed along, “I thank you cordially for an election which cannot be otherwise than flattering to me from every point of view. But I have many reasons for begging you, for adjuring you, to exempt me from this noble office at least for three years, in order that I may become more firmly settled in this part of the country, where approbation will always be so precious to me.”

Pavel Ivanovitch, having delivered himself to this effect, bent his head slightly towards his left shoulder, brought both hands together on his breast, and awaited a reply.

Prince Tchigirin, a man of lofty stature, renowned for his overwhelming blows, who chanced to stand at about ten paces from Tchitchikoff, then exclaimed in a very fine baritone voice:—

“Mr. Tchitchikoff is wrong in thus alarming himself. Gentlemen, pray have the charity to explain to him that he came out third or fourth in the list, and that he is excused from discharging the functions in question, not for three years only, but for fifteen or perhaps eighteen.”

Prince Tchigirin was not a competitor; he himself did not wish to be marshal; but on the other hand he could not endure the thought that anyone else should aspire to the office, unless he were a prince, or at least a triple millionaire.

Soon afterwards Melekitchentzoff sought out Tchitchikoff, for he wished to invite him to dinner, and to regale him with a dish of herring-roe such as could only be found at his table. However, our hero had disappeared from the hall, and three hours later he was taking tea in a posting-house situated twenty- one versts from town, and listening to the overture of Lodoiska, executed by a musical snuff-box, which had constituted the delight of the superintendent of this station for the last twenty-five years. Our hero