ictly speaking, is not drinking, but merely
conveying the impression that he is doing it to oblige.

"Well, what is it to be, Phoma Phornich?" asks the proprietress
searchingly. "This business isn't worth an empty eggshell, now... Why,
you have only to say a word..."

Kerbesh slowly draws in half a wine-glass of liqueur, works the oily,
strong, pungent liquid slightly with his tongue over the roof of his
mouth, swallows it, chases it down, without hurrying, with coffee, and
then passes the ring finger of his left hand over his moustaches, to
the right and left.

"Think it over for yourself, Madam Shoibes," he says, looking down at
the table, spreading out his hands and screwing up his eyes. "Think of
the risk to which I'm exposed! The girl through means of deception was
enticed into this... what-you-may-call-it... well, in a word, into a
house of ill-fame, to express it in lofty style. Now the parents are
searching for her through the police. Ve-ery well. She gets into one
place after another, from the fifth into the tenth... Finally the trail
is picked up with you, and most important of all--think of it!--in my
district! What can I do?"

"Mr. Kerbesh, but she is of age," says the proprietress.

"They are of age," confirms Isaiah Savvich. "They gave an
acknowledgment, that it was of their own will..."

Emma Edwardovna pronounces in a bass, with cool assurance:

"Honest to God, she's the same here as an own daughter."

"But that's not what I am talking about," the inspector frowns in
vexation. "Just consider my position... Why, this is duty. Lord,
there's no end of unpleasantnesses without that!"

The proprietress suddenly arises, shuffles in her slippers to the door,
and says, winking to the inspector with a sleepy, expressionless eye of
faded blue:

"Mr. Kerbesh, I would ask you to have a look at our alterations. We
want to enlarge the place a bit."

"A-ah! With pleasure..."

After ten minutes both return, without looking at each other. Kerbesh's
hand is crunching a brand-new hundred rouble note in his pocket. The
conversation about the seduced girl is not renewed. The inspector,
hastily finishing his Benedictine, complains of the present decline in
manners.

"I have a son, now, a schoolboy--Paul. He comes to me, the scoundrel,
and declares: 'Papa, the pupils swear at me, because you are a
policeman, and because you serve on Yamskaya, and because you take
bribes from brothels.' Well, tell me, for God's