However, the tobacco smoke had begun to make my eyes smart. After hearing Hlopakov's exclamation and the prince's chuckle one last time more, I went off to my room, where, on a narrow, hair-stuffed sofa pressed into hollows, with a high, curved back, my man had already made me up a bed. The next day I went out to look at the horses in the stables, and began with the famous horsedealer Sitnikov's. I went through a gate into a yard strewn with sand. Before a wide open stable-door stood the horsedealer himself--a tall, stout man no longer young, in a hareskin coat, with a raised turnover collar. Catching sight of me, he moved slowly to meet me, held his cap in both hands above his head, and in a sing-song voice brought out: 'Ah, our respects to you. You'd like to have a look at the horses, may be?' 'Yes; I've come to look at the horses.' 'And what sort of horses, precisely, I make bold to ask?' 'Show me what you have.' 'With pleasure.' We went into the stable. Some white pug-dogs got up from the hay and ran up to us, wagging their tails, and a long-bearded old goat walked away with an air of dissatisfaction; three stable-boys, in strong but greasy sheepskins, bowed to us without speaking. To right and to left, in horse-boxes raised above the ground, stood nearly thirty horses, groomed to perfection. Pigeons fluttered cooing about the rafters. 'What, now, do you want a horse for? for driving or for breeding?' Sitnikov inquired of me. 'Oh, I'll see both sorts.' 'To be sure, to be sure,' the horsedealer commented, dwelling on each syllable. 'Petya, show the gentleman Ermine.' We came out into the yard. 'But won't you let them bring you a bench out of the hut?... You don't want to sit down.... As you please.' There was the thud of hoofs on the boards, the crack of a whip, and Petya, a swarthy fellow of forty, marked by small-pox, popped out of the stable with a rather well-shaped grey stallion, made it rear, ran twice round the yard with it, and adroitly pulled it up at the right place. Ermine stretched himself, snorted, raised his tail, shook his head, and looked sideways at me. 'A clever beast,' I thought. 'Give him his head, give him his head,' said Sitniker, and he stared at me. 'What may you think of him?' he inquired at last. 'The horse's not bad--the hind legs aren't quite sound.' 'His legs are first-rate!' Sitnikov rejoined, with an air of conviction;' and his hind-quarters ... just look, sir ... broad as an oven--you could sleep up there.' 'His pasterns are long.' 'Long! mercy on us! Start him, Petya, start him, but at a trot, a trot ... don't let him gallop.' Again Petya ran round the yard with Ermine. None of us spoke for a little. 'There, lead him back,' said Sitnikov,' and show us Falcon.'