“How can I tell what it may be to me?” He laughed again. “You see, my dear and highly respected Andrey Antonovitch, you are cunning, but it’s not come to that yet and it certainly never will come to it, you understand? Perhaps you do understand. Though I did make an explanation in the proper quarter when I came back from abroad, and I really don’t know why a man of certain convictions should not be able to work for the advancement of his sincere convictions⁠ ⁠… but nobody there has yet instructed me to investigate your character and I’ve not undertaken any such job from them . Consider: I need not have given those two names to you. I might have gone straight there