When I had drunk my tea, next morning, without asking leave of Mademoiselle Friquet, I set off to the servants’ quarters. I wanted to have another chat with the queer fellow I had seen the day before. Without knocking at the door--the very idea of doing so would never have occurred to us--I walked straight into the room. I found in it not the man I was looking for, not Punin, but his protector--the philanthropist, Baburin. He was standing before the window, without his outer garment, his legs wide apart. He was busily engaged in rubbing his head and neck with a long towel. ‘What do you want?’ he observed, keeping his hands still raised, and knitting his brows. ‘Punin’s not at home, then?’ I queried in the most free-and-easy manner, without taking off my cap. ‘Mr. Punin, Nikander Vavilitch, at this moment, is not at home, truly,’ Baburin responded deliberately; ‘but allow me to make an observation, young man: it’s not the proper thing to come into another person’s room like this, without asking leave.’ I! ... young man! ... how dared he! ... I grew crimson with fury. ‘You cannot be aware who I am,’ I rejoined, in a manner no longer free-and-easy, but haughty. ‘I am the grandson of the mistress here.’ ‘That’s all the same to me,’ retorted Baburin, setting to work with his towel again. ‘Though you are the seignorial grandson, you have no right to come into other people’s rooms.’ ‘Other people’s? What do you mean? I’m--at home here--everywhere.’ ‘No, excuse me: here--I’m at home; since this room has been assigned to me, by agreement, in exchange for my work.’ ‘Don’t teach me, if you please,’ I interrupted: ‘I know better than you what ...’ ‘You must be taught,’ he interrupted in his turn, ‘for you’re at an age when you ... I know my duties, but I know my rights too very well, and if you continue to speak to me in that way, I shall have to ask you to go out of the room....’ There is no knowing how our dispute would have ended if Punin had not at that instant entered, shuffling and shambling from side to side. He most likely guessed from the expression of our faces that some unpleasantness had passed between us, and at once turned to me with the warmest expressions of delight. ‘Ah! little master! little master!’ he cried, waving his hands wildly, and going off into his noiseless laugh: ‘the little dear! come to pay me a visit! here he’s come, the little dear!’ (What’s the meaning of it? I thought: can he be speaking in this familiar way to me?) ‘There, come along, come with me into the garden. I’ve found something there.... Why stay in this stuffiness here! let’s go!’ I followed Punin, but in the doorway I thought it as well to turn round and fling a glance of defiance at Baburin, as though to say, I’m not afraid of you! He responded in the same way, and positively snorted into the towel--probably to make me thoroughly aware how utterly he despised me!