“I saw that the porters did not want to do what I said,” began the man; “for it’s too late, said they, and maybe he’ll be angry that we did not come at the time. I was vexed and I lost my sleep, and I began making inquiries. And finding out yesterday where to go, I went today. The first time I went he wasn’t there, when I came an hour later he couldn’t see me. I went the third time, and they showed me in. I informed him of everything, just as it happened, and he began skipping about the room and punching himself on the chest. ‘What do you scoundrels mean by it? If I’d known about it I should have arrested him!’ Then he ran out, called somebody and began talking to him in the corner, then he turned to me, scolding and questioning me. He scolded me a great deal; and I told him everything, and I told him that you didn’t dare to say a word in answer to me yesterday and that you didn’t recognise me. And he fell to running about again and kept hitting himself on the chest, and getting angry and running about, and when you were announced he told me to go into the next room. ‘Sit there a bit,’ he said. ‘Don’t move, whatever you may hear.’ And he set a chair there for me and locked me in. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘I may call you.’ And when Nikolay’d been brought he let me out as soon as you were gone. ‘I shall send for you again and question you,’ he said.”