Yesterday, Ivan Andreyevitch Petunikoff was in the dosshouse yard with his son and an architect. They measured the yard and put small wooden sticks in various places, which, after the exit of Petunikoff and at the order of the Captain, Meteor took out and threw away. To the eyes of the Captain this merchant appeared small and thin. He wore a long garment like a frock-coat, a velvet cap, and high, well-cleaned boots. He had a thin face with prominent cheekbones, a wedge-shaped greyish beard, and a high forehead seamed with wrinkles from beneath which shone two narrow, blinking, and observant grey eyes ... a sharp, gristly nose, a small mouth with thin lips ... altogether his appearance was pious, rapacious, and respectably wicked. "Cursed cross-bred fox and pig!" swore the Captain under his breath, recalling his first meeting with Petunikoff. The merchant came with one of the town councillors to buy the house, and seeing the Captain asked his companion: "Is this your lodger?" And from that day, a year and a half ago, there has been keen competition among the inhabitants of the dosshouse as to which can swear the hardest at the merchant. And last night there was a "slight skirmish with hot words," as the Captain called it, between Petunikoff and himself. Having dismissed the architect the merchant approached the Captain. "What are you hatching?" asked he, putting his hand to his cap, perhaps to adjust it, perhaps as a salutation. "What are you plotting?" answered the Captain in the same tone. He moved his chin so that his beard trembled a little; a non-exacting person might have taken it for a bow; otherwise it only expressed the desire of the Captain to move his pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other. "You see, having plenty of money, I can afford to sit hatching it. Money is a good thing, and I possess it," the Captain chaffed the merchant, casting cunning glances at him. "It means that you serve money, and not money you," went on Kuvalda, desiring at the same time to punch the merchant's belly. "Isn't it all the same? Money makes life comfortable, but no money," ... and the merchant looked at the Captain with a feigned expression of suffering. The other's upper lip curled, and exposed large, wolf-like teeth. "With brains and a conscience, it is possible to live without it. Men only acquire riches when they cease to listen to their conscience ... the less conscience the more money!" "Just so; but then there are men who have neither money nor conscience." "Were you just like what you are now when you were young?" asked Kuvalda simply. The other's nostrils twitched. Ivan Andreyevitch sighed, passed his hand over his eyes and said: "Oh! When I was young I had to undergo a great many difficulties ... Work! Oh! I did work!" "And you cheated, too, I suppose?" "People like you? Nobles? I should just think so! They used to grovel at my feet!"