l watch on him.

The very appearance of Liputin as he came in assured us that he had on
this occasion a special right to come in, in spite of the prohibition.
He brought with him an unknown gentleman, who must have been a new
arrival in the town. In reply to the senseless stare of my petrified
friend, he called out immediately in a loud voice:

"I'm bringing you a visitor, a special one! I make bold to intrude on
your solitude. Mr. Kirillov, a very distinguished civil engineer. And
what's more he knows your son, the much esteemed Pyotr Stepanovitch,
very intimately; and he has a message from him. He's only just arrived."

"The message is your own addition," the visitor observed curtly.
"There's no message at all. But I certainly do know Verhovensky. I left
him in the X. province, ten days ahead of us."

Stepan Trofimovitch mechanically offered his hand and motioned him to
sit down. He looked at me he looked at Liputin, and then as though
suddenly recollecting himself sat down himself, though he still kept his
hat and stick in his hands without being aware of it.

"Bah, but you were going out yourself! I was told that you were quite
knocked up with work."

"Yes, I'm ill, and you see, I meant to go for a walk, I..." Stepan
Trofimovitch checked himself, quickly flung his hat and stick on the
sofa and--turned crimson.

Meantime, I was hurriedly examining the visitor. He was a young man,
about twenty-seven, decently dressed, well made, slender and dark, with
a pale, rather muddy-coloured face and black lustreless eyes. He seemed
rather thoughtful and absent-minded, spoke jerkily and ungrammatically,
transposing words in rather a strange way, and getting muddled if he
attempted a sentence of any length. Liputin was perfectly aware of
Stepan Trofimovitch's alarm, and was obviously pleased at it. He sat
down in a wicker chair which he dragged almost into the middle of the
room, so as to be at an equal distance between his host and the visitor,
who had installed themselves on sofas on opposite sides of the room. His
sharp eyes darted inquisitively from one corner of the room to another.

"It's.... a long while since I've seen Petrusha.... You met abroad?"
Stepan Trofimovitch managed to mutter to the visitor.

"Both here and abroad."

"Alexey Nilitch has only just returned himself after living four years
abroad," put in Liputin. "He has been travelling to perfect himself in
his speciality and has come to us because he