o him, "don't stir! There. Answer, now:
what did you come in to look at?"

"If you have any order to give me it's my duty to carry it out," he
answered, after another silent pause, with a slow, measured lisp,
raising his eyebrows and calmly twisting his head from one side to
another, all this with exasperating composure.

"That's not what I am asking you about, you torturer!" I shouted,
turning crimson with anger. "I'll tell you why you came here myself:
you see, I don't give you your wages, you are so proud you don't want
to bow down and ask for it, and so you come to punish me with your
stupid stares, to worry me and you have no sus-pic-ion how stupid it
is--stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid! ..."

He would have turned round again without a word, but I seized him.

"Listen," I shouted to him. "Here's the money, do you see, here it
is," (I took it out of the table drawer); "here's the seven roubles
complete, but you are not going to have it, you ... are ... not ...
going ... to ... have it until you come respectfully with bowed head to
beg my pardon. Do you hear?"

"That cannot be," he answered, with the most unnatural self-confidence.

"It shall be so," I said, "I give you my word of honour, it shall be!"

"And there's nothing for me to beg your pardon for," he went on, as
though he had not noticed my exclamations at all. "Why, besides, you
called me a 'torturer,' for which I can summon you at the
police-station at any time for insulting behaviour."

"Go, summon me," I roared, "go at once, this very minute, this very
second! You are a torturer all the same! a torturer!"

But he merely looked at me, then turned, and regardless of my loud
calls to him, he walked to his room with an even step and without
looking round.

"If it had not been for Liza nothing of this would have happened," I
decided inwardly. Then, after waiting a minute, I went myself behind
his screen with a dignified and solemn air, though my heart was beating
slowly and violently.

"Apollon," I said quietly and emphatically, though I was breathless,
"go at once without a minute's delay and fetch the police-officer."

He had meanwhile settled himself at his table, put on his spectacles
and taken up some sewing. But, hearing my order, he burst into a
guffaw.

"At once, go this minute! Go on, or else you can't imagine what will
happen."

"You are certainly out of your mind," he observed, without even raising
his head, lisping as del