'The only pity is, there are no ladies,' he resumed with a deep sigh; 'it's a bachelor party, else that's when your humble servant gets on. Look, look,' he cried suddenly: 'Prince Kozelsky's come--that tall man there, with a beard, in yellow gloves. You can see at once he's been abroad... and he always arrives as late. He's as heavy, I tell you, by himself, as a pair of merchant's horses, and you should see how condescendingly he talks with your humble servant, how graciously he deigns to smile at the civilities of our starving mothers and daughters!... And he sometimes sets up for a wit, but he is only here for a little time; and oh, his witticisms! It's for all the world like hacking at a ship's cable with a blunt knife. He can't bear me.... I'm going to bow to him.' And Lupihin ran off to meet the prince. 'And here comes my special enemy,' he observed, turning all at once to me. 'Do you see that fat man with the brown face and the bristles on his head, over there, that's got his cap clutched in his hand, and is creeping along by the wall and glaring in all directions like a wolf? I sold him for 400 roubles a horse worth 1000, and that stupid animal has a perfect right now to despise me; though all the while he is so destitute of all faculty of imagination, especially in the morning before his tea, or after dinner, that if you say "Good morning!" to him, he'll answer, "Is it?" 'And here comes the general,' pursued Lupihin, 'the civilian general, a retired, destitute general. He has a daughter of beetroot-sugar, and a manufactory with scrofula.... Beg pardon, I've got it wrong... but there, you understand. Ah! and the architect's turned up here! A German, and wears moustaches, and does not understand his business--a natural phenomenon!... though what need for him to understand his business so long as he takes bribes and sticks in pillars everywhere to suit the tastes of our pillars of society!'