A loud guffaw broke out on all sides, and was hushed at once, stifled by expectation. 'Or perhaps on your nose you can....' 'Stop that!' a loud harsh voice suddenly interrupted Rostislav Adamitch; 'I wonder you're not ashamed to torment the poor man!' Everyone looked round. In the doorway stood Tchertop-hanov. As a cousin four times removed of the deceased contractor, he too had received a note of invitation to the meeting of the relations. During the whole time of reading the will he had kept, as he always did, haughtily apart from the others. 'Stop that!' he repeated, throwing his head back proudly. Mr. Shtoppel turned round quickly, and seeing a poorly dressed, unattractive-looking man, he inquired of his neighbour in an undertone (caution's always a good thing): 'Who's that?' 'Tchertop-hanov--he's no great shakes,' the latter whispered in his ear. Rostislav Adamitch assumed a haughty air. 'And who are you to give orders?' he said through his nose, drooping his eyelids scornfully; 'who may you be, allow me to inquire?--a queer fish, upon my word!' Tchertop-hanov exploded like gunpowder at a spark. He was choked with fury. 'Ss--ss--ss!' he hissed like one possessed, and all at once he thundered: 'Who am I? Who am I? I'm Panteley Tchertop-hanov, of the ancient hereditary nobility; my forefathers served the Tsar: and who may you be?' Rostislav Adamitch turned pale and stepped back. He had not expected such resistance. 'I--I--a fish indeed!' Tchertop-hanov darted forward; Shtoppel bounded away in great perturbation, the others rushed to meet the exasperated nobleman. 'A duel, a duel, a duel, at once, across a handkerchief!' shouted the enraged Panteley, 'or beg my pardon--yes, and his too....' 'Pray beg his pardon!' the agitated relations muttered all round Shtoppel; 'he's such a madman, he'd cut your throat in a minute!' 'I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon, I didn't know,' stammered Shtoppel; 'I didn't know....' 'And beg his too!' vociferated the implacable Panteley. 'I beg your pardon too,' added Rostislav Adamitch, addressing Nedopyuskin, who was shaking as if he were in an ague. Tchertop-hanov calmed down; he went up to Tihon Ivanitch, took him by the hand, looked fiercely round, and, as not one pair of eyes ventured to meet his, he walked triumphantly amid profound silence out of the room, with the new owner of the lawfully acquired village of Bezselendyevka. From that day they never parted again. (The village of Bezselendyevka was only seven miles from Bezsonovo.) The boundless gratitude of Nedopyuskin soon passed into the most adoring veneration. The weak, soft, and not perfectly stainless Tihon bowed down in the dust before the fearless and irreproachable Panteley. 'It's no slight thing,' he thought to himself sometimes, 'to talk to the governor, look him straight in the face.... Christ have mercy on us, doesn't he look at him!'