“Incomprehensible!  For Heaven’s sake, how did your boot get into the garden?”

“What boot?”

“We found one boot in the sleeping room and the other in the garden.”

“And what do you want to know that for?  It’s none of your business!  Why don’t you drink, devil take you?  If you wakened me, then drink with me!  It is an interesting tale, brother, that of the boot!  I didn’t want to go with Olga.  I don’t like to be bossed.  She came under the window and began to abuse me.  She always was a termagant.  You know what women are like, all of them.  I was a bit drunk, so I took a boot and heaved it at her.  Ha-ha-ha!  Teach her not to scold another time!  But it didn’t!  Not a bit of it!  She climbed in at the window, lit the lamp, and began to hammer poor tipsy me.  She thrashed me, dragged me over here, and locked me in.  She feeds me now—­on love, vodka, and ham!  But where are you off to, Chubikoff?  Where are you going?”

The examining magistrate swore, and left the bath house.  Dukovski followed him, crestfallen.  They silently took their seats in the carriage and drove off.  The road never seemed to them so long and disagreeable as it did that time.  Both remained silent.  Chubikoff trembled with rage all the way.  Dukovski hid his nose in the collar of his overcoat, as if he was afraid that the darkness and the drizzling rain might read the shame in his face.

When they reached home, the examining magistrate found Dr. Tyutyeff awaiting him.  The doctor was sitting at the table, and, sighing deeply, was turning over the pages of the Neva.

“Such goings-on there are in the world!” he said, meeting the examining magistrate with a sad smile, “Austria is at it again!  And Gladstone also to some extent——­”

Chubikoff threw his cap under the table, and shook himself.

“Devils’ skeletons!  Don’t plague me!  A thousand times I have told you not to bother me with your politics!  This is no question of politics!  And you,” said Chubikoff, turning to Dukovski and shaking his fist, “I won’t forget this in a thousand years!”

“But the safety match?  How could I know?”

“Choke yourself with your safety match!  Get out of my way!  Don’t make me mad, or the devil only knows what I’ll do to you!  Don’t let me see a trace of you!”

Dukovski sighed, took his hat, and went out.

“I’ll go and get drunk,” he decided, going through the door, and gloomily wending his way to the public house.

VSEVOLOD VLADIMIROVITCH KRESTOVSKI

KNIGHTS OF INDUSTRY

I

THE LAST WILL OF THE PRINCESS

Princess Anna Chechevinski for the last time looked at the home of her girlhood, over which the St. Petersburg twilight was descending.  Defying the commands of her mother, the traditions of her family, she had decided to elope with the man of her choice.  With a last word of farewell to her maid, she wrapped her cloak round her and disappeared into the darkness.