m bargained with. If need be, I'll order myself."

"And may I invite a friend of mine?"

"No, let it be without any friends, if you please."

Manka leaned out of the door into the corridor and called out
resoundingly:

"Housekeeper, dear! Two bottles of beer and a bottle of lemonade for
me."

Simeon came with a tray and began with an accustomed rapidity to uncork
the bottles. Following him came Zociya, the housekeeper.

"There, now, how well you've made yourself at home here. Here's to your
lawful marriage!" she congratulated them.

"Daddy, treat the little housekeeper with beer," begged Manka. "Drink,
housekeeper dear."

"Well, in that case here's to your health, mister. Somehow, your face
seems kind of familiar to me?"

The German drank his beer, sucking and licking his moustache, and
impatiently waited for the housekeeper to go away. But she, having put
down her glass and thanked him, said:

"Let me get the money coming from you, mister. As much as is coming for
the beer and the time. That's both better for you and more convenient
for us."

The demand for the money went against the grain of the teacher, because
it completely destroyed the sentimental part of his intentions. He
became angry:

"What sort of boorishness is this, anyway! It doesn't look as if I were
preparing to run away from here. And besides, can't you discriminate
between people at all? You can see that a man of respectability, in a
uniform, has come to you, and not some tramp. What sort of importunity
is this!"

The housekeeper gave in a little.

"Now, don't get offended, mister. Of course, you'll pay the young lady
yourself for the visit. I don't think you will do her any wrong, she's
a fine girl among us. But I must trouble you to pay for the beer and
lemonade. I, too, have to give an account to the proprietress. Two
bottles at fifty is a rouble and the lemonade thirty--a rouble thirty."

"Good Lord, a bottle of beer fifty kopecks!" the German waxed
indignant. "Why, I will get it in any beer-shop for twelve kopecks."

"Well, then, go to a beer-shop if it's cheaper there," Zociya became
offended. "But if you've come to a respectable establishment, the
regular price is half a rouble. We don't take anything extra. There,
that's better. Twenty kopecks change coming to you?"

"Yes, change, without fail," firmly emphasized the German teacher. "And
I would request of you that nobody else should enter."

"No, no, no, what are you sa