“Oh dear!⁠ ⁠…” thought Nicholas Semyónovitch, “something must be wrong with Gógo.”

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Nicholas Nikoláyevitch seems unwell.” Nicholas Nikoláyevitch⁠—that was little Gógo, who had overeaten himself, and was now suffering from diarrhoea.

“And it’s high time for me to be going,” said the visitor. “Just look how light it is⁠ ⁠… how long we have been sitting here!” He smiled (as if approving of himself and his collocutors for having talked so much and so long) and took his leave.

Iván had to run about on his weary legs, searching for the visitor’s hat and umbrella, which the latter had himself left in the most unlikely places. Iván hoped to get a tip; but the visitor⁠—always generous, and quite ready to give him a rouble⁠—being carried away by the discussion, clean forgot him, and remembered only when well on his way that he had not tipped the footman. “Ah well,” he thought, “it cannot be helped now.”