ly resembled the rest.

Once, as he sat tapping his silver snuff-box after luncheon, Chichikov
remarked:

"One thing you lack, and only one, Andrei Ivanovitch."

"What is that?" asked his host.

"A female friend or two," replied Chichikov.

Tientietnikov made no rejoinder, and the conversation came temporarily
to an end.

But Chichikov was not to be discouraged; wherefore, while waiting for
supper and talking on different subjects, he seized an opportunity to
interject:

"Do you know, it would do you no harm to marry."

As before, Tientietnikov did not reply, and the renewed mention of the
subject seemed to have annoyed him.

For the third time--it was after supper--Chichikov returned to the
charge by remarking:

"To-day, as I was walking round your property, I could not help thinking
that marriage would do you a great deal of good. Otherwise you will
develop into a hypochondriac."

Whether Chichikov's words now voiced sufficiently the note of
persuasion, or whether Tientietnikov happened, at the moment, to be
unusually disposed to frankness, at all events the young landowner
sighed, and then responded as he expelled a puff of tobacco smoke:

"To attain anything, Paul Ivanovitch, one needs to have been born under
a lucky star."

And he related to his guest the whole history of his acquaintanceship
and subsequent rupture with the General.

As Chichikov listened to the recital, and gradually realised that the
affair had arisen merely out of a chance word on the General's part, he
was astounded beyond measure, and gazed at Tientietnikov without knowing
what to make of him.

"Andrei Ivanovitch," he said at length, "what was there to take offence
at?"

"Nothing, as regards the actual words spoken," replied the other. "The
offence lay, rather, in the insult conveyed in the General's tone."
Tientietnikov was a kindly and peaceable man, yet his eyes flashed as he
said this, and his voice vibrated with wounded feeling.

"Yet, even then, need you have taken it so much amiss?"

"What? Could I have gone on visiting him as before?"

"Certainly. No great harm had been done?"

"I disagree with you. Had he been an old man in a humble station of
life, instead of a proud and swaggering officer, I should not have
minded so much. But, as it was, I could not, and would not, brook his
words."

"A curious fellow, this Tientietnikov!" thought Chichikov to himself.

"A curious fellow, this Chichikov!" was Tientietn