I got up softly and looked through a crack in the partition. The fat man was sitting with his back to me. Facing him sat a merchant, a man about forty, lean and pale, who looked as if he had been rubbed with oil. He was incessantly fingering his beard, and very rapidly blinking and twitching his lips. 'Wonderful the young green crops this year, one may say,' he began again; 'I've been going about everywhere admiring them. All the way from Voronezh they've come up wonderfully, first-class, one may say.' 'The crops are pretty fair, certainly,' answered the head-clerk; 'but you know the saying, Gavrila Antonitch, autumn bids fair, but spring may be foul.' 'That's so, indeed, Nikolai Eremyitch; all is in God's hands; it's the absolute truth what you've just remarked, sir.... But perhaps your visitor's awake now.' The fat man turned round ... listened.... 'No, he's asleep. He may, though....' He went to the door. 'No, he's asleep,' he repeated and went back to his place. 'Well, so what are we to say, Nikolai Eremyitch?' the merchant began again; 'we must bring our little business to a conclusion.... Let it be so, Nikolai Eremyitch, let it be so,' he went on, blinking incessantly; 'two grey notes and a white for your favour, and there' (he nodded in the direction of the house), 'six and a half. Done, eh?' 'Four grey notes,' answered the clerk. 'Come, three, then.' 'Four greys, and no white.' 'Three, Nikolai Eremyitch.' 'Three and a half, and not a farthing less.' 'Three, Nikolai Eremyitch.' 'You're not talking sense, Gavrila Antonitch.' 'My, what a pig-headed fellow!' muttered the merchant. 'Then I'd better arrange it with the lady herself.' 'That's as you like,' answered the fat man; 'far better, I should say. Why should you worry yourself, after all?... Much better, indeed!' 'Well, well! Nikolai Eremyitch. I lost my temper for a minute! That was nothing but talk.' 'No, really, why?...' 'Nonsense, I tell you.... I tell you I was joking. Well, take your three and a half; there's no doing anything with you.' 'I ought to have got four, but I was in too great a hurry--like an ass!' muttered the fat man. 'Then up there at the house, six and a half, Nikolai Eremyitch; the corn will be sold for six and a half?' 'Six and a half, as we said already.' 'Well, your hand on that then, Nikolai Eremyitch' (the merchant clapped his outstretched fingers into the clerk's palm). 'And good-bye, in God's name!' (The merchant got up.) 'So then, Nikolai Eremyitch, sir, I'll go now to your lady, and bid them send up my name, and so I'll say to her, "Nikolai Eremyitch," I'll say, "has made a bargain with me for six and a half."' 'That's what you must say, Gavrila Antonitch.' 'And now, allow me.'