here! coach-boy! Dance us the fish, smartly now’; and a minute later he would whisper enthusiastically: ‘Ah, what a fellow it is!’ Well, on my last visit, this Ivan Suhih came into my room, and, without saying a word, fell on his knees. ‘Ivan, what’s the matter?’ ‘Save me, sir.’ ‘Why, what is it?’ And thereupon Ivan told me his trouble. He was exchanged, twenty years ago, by ‘the Suhy family for a serf of the Teliegins’;--simply exchanged without any kind of formality or written deed: the man given in exchange for him had died, but the Suhys had forgotten about Ivan, and he had stayed on in Alexey Sergeitch’s house as his own serf; only his nickname had served to recall his origin. But now his former masters were dead; the estate had passed into other hands; and the new owner, who was reported to be a cruel and oppressive man, having learned that one of his serfs was detained without cause or reason at Alexey Sergeitch’s, began to demand him back; in case of refusal he threatened legal proceedings, and the threat was not an empty one, as he was himself of the rank of privy councillor, and had great weight in the province. Ivan had rushed in terror to Alexey Sergeitch. The old man was sorry for his dancer, and he offered the privy councillor to buy Ivan for a considerable sum. But the privy councillor would not hear of it; he was a Little Russian, and obstinate as the devil. The poor fellow would have to be given up. ‘I have spent my life here, and I’m at home here; I have served here, here I have eaten my bread, and here I want to die,’ Ivan said to me--and there was no smile on his face now; on the contrary, it looked turned to stone.... ‘And now I am to go to this wretch.... Am I a dog to be flung from one kennel to another with a noose round my neck? ... to be told: “There, get along with you!” Save me, master; beg your uncle, remember how I always amused you.... Or else there’ll be harm come of it; it won’t end without sin.’ ‘What sort of sin, Ivan?’ ‘I shall kill that gentleman. I shall simply go and say to him, “Master, let me go back; or else, mind, be careful of yourself.... I shall kill you.”’