look upon you as my best friends at this moment of my life, at this moment when my honor is assailed. That’s no offense to you, gentlemen, is it?”
“On the contrary. You’ve expressed all that so well, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” Nikolay Parfenovitch answered with dignified approbation.
“And enough of those trivial questions, gentlemen, all those tricky questions!” cried Mitya enthusiastically. “Or there’s simply no knowing where we shall get to! Is there?”
“I will follow your sensible advice entirely,” the prosecutor interposed, addressing Mitya. “I don’t withdraw my question, however. It is now vitally important for us to know exactly why you needed that sum, I mean precisely three thousand.”
“Why I needed it? … Oh, for one thing and another. … Well, it was to pay a debt.”
“A debt to whom?”
“That I absolutely refuse to answer, gentlemen. Not because I couldn’t, or