nothing of one another. You fight shy of us. You shouldn’t. We are not such terrible people as you think. Well, anyway, I am glad to renew our acquaintance.”
And he turned carelessly to put down his hat on the window.
“Have you been waiting long?” Trudolyubov inquired.
“I arrived at five o’clock as you told me yesterday,” I answered aloud, with an irritability that threatened an explosion.
“Didn’t you let him know that we had changed the hour?” said Trudolyubov to Simonov.
“No, I didn’t. I forgot,” the latter replied, with no sign of regret, and without even apologising to me he went off to order the hors d’œuvre .
“So you’ve been here a whole hour? Oh, poor fellow!” Zverkov cried ironically, for to his notions this was bound to be extremely funny. That rascal Ferfitchkin followed with his nasty little snigger like a puppy yapping. My position struck him, too, as exquisitely ludicrous and embarrassing.