ood things to-morrow?"

Neither Fischelowitz nor the Count vouchsafed any answer to this thrust.
For the second time, since the Count had entered, however, the tobacconist
wore an expression approaching to gravity. The Count himself kept his
composure admirably, only glancing coldly at Akulina, and then looking at
his cigarette. Akulina is a broad, fat woman, with a flattened Tartar
face, small eyes, good but short teeth, full lips and a dark complexion.
She reminds one of an over-fed tabby cat, of doubtful temper, and her
voice seems to reach utterance after traversing some thick, soft medium,
which lends it an odd sort of guttural richness. She moves quietly but
heavily and has an Asiatic second sight in the matter of finance. In
matters of thrift and foresight her husband places implicit confidence in
her judgment. In matters of generosity and kindness implying the use of
money, he never consults her.

"It is amazing to see how much people will believe," she said, putting out
her candle and snuffing it with her thumb and forefinger. Then she began
to arrange the boxes she had brought, setting them in order upon the
shelves. Still neither of the men answered her. But she was not the woman
to be reduced to silence by silence.

"I am always telling you that it is all rubbish," she continued, turning a
broad expanse of alpaca-covered back upon her audience. "I am always
telling you that you are no more a count than Fischelowitz is a grand
duke, that the whole thing is a foolish imagination which you have stuck
into your head, as one sticks tobacco into a paper shell. And it ought to
be burned out of your head, or starved out, or knocked out, or something,
for if it stays there it will addle your brains altogether. Why cannot you
see that you are in the world just like other people, and give up all
these ridiculous dreams and all this chatter about counts and princes and
such like people, of whom you never spoke to one in your life, for all you
may say?"

The Count glanced at the back of Akulina's head, which was decently
covered by a flattened twist of very shining black hair, and then he
looked at Fischelowitz as though to inquire whether the latter would
suffer a gentleman to be thus insulted in his presence and on his
premises. Fischelowitz seemed embarrassed, and coloured a little.

"You might choose your language a little more carefully, wife," he
observed in a rather timid tone.

"And you might choose your fr