t he had been ill ever since Easter.

Soon after the registration, he had to stand up for a little while;
the doctor in a white apron, with a towel round his waist, walked
across the waiting-room. As he passed by the boy who hopped, he
shrugged his shoulders, and said in a sing-song tenor:

"Well, you are an idiot! Aren't you an idiot? I told you to come
on Monday, and you come on Friday. It's nothing to me if you don't
come at all, but you know, you idiot, your leg will be done for!"

The lad made a pitiful face, as though he were going to beg for
alms, blinked, and said:

"Kindly do something for me, Ivan Mikolaitch!"

"It's no use saying 'Ivan Mikolaitch,'" the doctor mimicked him.
"You were told to come on Monday, and you ought to obey. You are
an idiot, and that is all about it."

The doctor began seeing the patients. He sat in his little room,
and called up the patients in turn. Sounds were continually coming
from the little room, piercing wails, a child's crying, or the
doctor's angry words:

"Come, why are you bawling? Am I murdering you, or what? Sit quiet!"

Pashka's turn came.

"Pavel Galaktionov!" shouted the doctor.

His mother was aghast, as though she had not expected this summons,
and taking Pashka by the hand, she led him into the room.

The doctor was sitting at the table, mechanically tapping on a thick
book with a little hammer.

"What's wrong?" he asked, without looking at them.

"The little lad has an ulcer on his elbow, sir," answered his mother,
and her face assumed an expression as though she really were terribly
grieved at Pashka's ulcer.

"Undress him!"

Pashka, panting, unwound the kerchief from his neck, then wiped his
nose on his sleeve, and began deliberately pulling off his sheepskin.

"Woman, you have not come here on a visit!" said the doctor angrily.
"Why are you dawdling? You are not the only one here."

Pashka hurriedly flung the sheepskin on the floor, and with his
mother's help took off his shirt. . . The doctor looked at him
lazily, and patted him on his bare stomach.

"You have grown quite a respectable corporation, brother Pashka,"
he said, and heaved a sigh. "Come, show me your elbow."

Pashka looked sideways at the basin full of bloodstained slops,
looked at the doctor's apron, and began to cry.

"May-ay!" the doctor mimicked him. "Nearly old enough to be married,
spoilt boy, and here he is blubbering! For shame!"

Pashka, trying not to cry, looked a