“Fancy the conceit of the fellow!” interrupted the clerk, who was also beginning to lose patience; “an apothecary’s assistant, simply an apothecary’s assistant, a wretched leech; and listen to him--fie upon you! you’re a high and mighty personage!” “Yes, an apothecary’s assistant, and except for this apothecary’s assistant you’d have been rotting in the graveyard by now.--It was some devil drove me to cure him,” he added between his teeth. “You cured me?--No, you tried to poison me; you dosed me with aloes,” the clerk put in. “What was I to do if nothing but aloes had any effect on you?” “The use of aloes is forbidden by the Board of Health,” pursued Nikolai. “I’ll lodge a complaint against you yet.--You tried to compass my death--that was what you did! But the Lord suffered it not.” “Hush, now, that’s enough, gentlemen,” the cashier was beginning-- “Stand off!” bawled the clerk. “He tried to poison me! Do you understand that?” “That’s very likely.--Listen, Nikolai Eremyitch,” Pavel began in despairing accents. “For the last time, I beg you.--You force me to it.--I can’t stand it any longer. Let us alone, do you hear? or else, by God, it’ll go ill with one or other of us--I mean with you!” The fat man flew into a rage. “I’m not afraid of you!” he shouted; “do you hear, milksop? I got the better of your father; I broke his horns--a warning to you; take care!” “Don’t talk of my father, Nikolai Eremyitch.” “Get away! who are you to give me orders?” “I tell you, don’t talk of him!” “And I tell you, don’t forget yourself.--However necessary you think yourself, if our lady has a choice between us, it’s not you’ll be kept, my dear! None’s allowed to mutiny, mind!” Pavel was shaking with fury. “As for the wench, Tatyana, she deserves--wait a bit, she’ll get something worse!” Pavel dashed forward with uplifted fists, and the clerk rolled heavily on the floor. “Handcuff him, handcuff him,” groaned Nikolai Eremyitch-- I won’t take upon myself to describe the end of this scene; I fear I have wounded the reader’s delicate susceptibilities as it is. The same day I returned home. A week later I heard that Madame Losnyakova had kept both Pavel and Nikolai in her service, but had sent away the girl Tatyana; it appeared she was not wanted. THE THIEF BY FEODOR MIKAILOVITCH DOSTOIEVSKI [Illustration] _Dostoievski, the son of a Moscow physician, was born in 1821 and died of consumption in 1881. For his connection with a revolutionary plot he was condemned to death in 1849, but on the scaffold his sentence was commuted to hard labor in Siberia. While his writings are not distinguished in form or style, the author’s intimate knowledge of the life he portrays and his wonderful power of analysis unite to create an impression of life that is all the more poignant because it is so scientifically accurate._ _The degree of relationship between “The Thief” and Gogol’s “The Cloak” will be readily perceived._