h with himself regained his courage, and waited until the
first Sunday, when, seeing from afar that Petrovich's wife had left
the house, he went straight to him.

Petrovich's eye was indeed very much askew after Saturday. His head
drooped, and he was very sleepy; but for all that, as soon as he knew
what it was a question of, it seemed as though Satan jogged his
memory. "Impossible," said he. "Please to order a new one." Thereupon
Akaky Akakiyevich handed over the ten-kopek piece. "Thank you, sir. I
will drink your good health," said Petrovich. "But as for the cloak,
don't trouble yourself about it; it is good for nothing. I will make
you a capital new one, so let us settle about it now."

Akaky Akakiyevich was still for mending it, but Petrovich would not
hear of it, and said, "I shall certainly have to make you a new one,
and you may depend upon it that I shall do my best. It may even be, as
the fashion goes, that the collar can be fastened by silver hooks
under a flap."

Then Akaky Akakiyevich saw that it was impossible to get along without
a new cloak, and his spirit sank utterly. How, in fact, was it to be
done? Where was the money to come from? He must have some new
trousers, and pay a debt of long standing to the shoemaker for putting
new tops to his old boots, and he must order three shirts from the
seamstress, and a couple of pieces of linen. In short, all his money
must be spent. And even if the director should be so kind as to order
him to receive forty-five or even fifty rubles instead of forty, it
would be a mere nothing, a mere drop in the ocean towards the funds
necessary for a cloak, although he knew that Petrovich was often
wrong-headed enough to blurt out some outrageous price, so that even
his own wife could not refrain from exclaiming, "Have you lost your
senses, you fool?" At one time he would not work at any price, and now
it was quite likely that he had named a higher sum than the cloak
would cost.

But although he knew that Petrovich would undertake to make a cloak
for eighty rubles, still, where was he to get the eighty rubles from?
He might possibly manage half. Yes, half might be procured, but where
was the other half to come from? But the reader must first be told
where the first half came from.

Akaky Akakiyevich had a habit of putting, for every ruble he spent, a
groschen into a small box, fastened with lock and key, and with a slit
in the top for the reception of money. At the end of