ke an old, fat
circus horse.

"It can be done ... it can be done ... Pass this way, gentlemen, into
the parlor. It can be done, it can be done ... What liqueur? We have
only Benedictine ... Benedictine, then? It can be done, it can be done
... And will you allow the young ladies to come in?"

"Well, if that is so indispensable?" Yarchenko spread out his hands
with a sigh.

And at once the girls one after the other straggled into the parlor
with its gray plush furniture and blue lantern. They entered, extended
to every one in turn their unbending palms, unused to hand-clasps, gave
their names abruptly in a low voice--Manya, Katie, Liuba ... They sat
down on somebody's knees, embraced him around the neck, and, as usual,
began to importune:

"Little student, you're such a little good-looker. May I ask for
oranzes?"

"Volodenka, buy me some candy! All right?"

"And me chocolate!"

"Fatty," Vera, dressed as a jockey, wheedled the sub-professor,
clambering up on his knees, "I have a friend, only she's sick and can't
come out into the drawing room. I'll carry her some apples and
chocolate. Will you let me?"

"Well, now, those are all just stories about a friend! But above all,
don't be thrusting your tenderness at me. Sit as smart children sit,
right here alongside, on the arm chair, just so. And fold your little
hands."

"Ah, but what if I can't!" writhed Vera in coquetry, rolling her eyes
up under her upper lids ... "When you are so nice."

But Lichonin, in answer to this professional beggary, only nodded his
head gravely and good-naturedly, just like Emma Edwardovna, and
repeated over and over again, mimicking her German accent:

"Itt can pe done, itt can pe done, itt can pe done..."

"Then I will tell the waiter, honey, to carry my friend some sweets and
apples?" pestered Vera.

Such importunity entered the round of their tacit duties. There even
existed among the girls some captious, childish, strange rivalry as to
the ability to "ease a guest of his money"--strange enough because they
did not derive any profit out of this, unless, indeed, a certain
affection from the housekeeper or a word of approbation from the
proprietress. But in their petty, monotonous, habitually frivolous life
there was, in general, a great deal of semi-puerile, semi-hysterical
play.

Simeon brought a coffee pot, cups, a squatty bottle of Benedictine,
fruits and bon-bons in glass vases, and gaily and easily began making
the cor