“Eh, what nonsense! One must be practical in all things. They’re awfully pleased, I’m sure⁠ ⁠… Eh, you there!” he cried, “ask for something to hang over this window, or it will be draughty in the night.”

At this moment the old man came in to make the officers’ acquaintance. Of course he did not omit to say, though he did it with a slight blush, that he and the old Count had been comrades, that he had enjoyed the Count’s favour, and he even added that he had more than once been under obligations to the deceased. What obligations he referred to, whether it was the omission to repay the hundred roubles the Count had borrowed, or his throwing him into a snow-heap, or swearing at him, the old man quite omitted to explain. The young Count was very polite to the old cavalryman, and thanked him for the night’s lodging.