"I don't offer you any coffee," went on the inexhaustible Porphyrius, "because this is not the place for it, but can you not spend a few minutes with a friend, by way of causing him some little distraction? You must know that all these professional obligations--don't be vexed, _batuchka_, if you see me walking about like this, I am sure you will excuse me, if I tell you how anxious I am not to do so, but movement is so indispensable to me! I am always seated--and, to me, it is quite a luxury to be able to move about for a minute or two. I purpose, in fact, to go through a course of calisthenics. The trapeze is said to stand in high favor amongst State counselors--counselors in office, even amongst privy counselors. Nowadays, in fact, gymnastics have become a positive science. As for these duties of our office, these examinations, all this formality--you yourself, you will remember, touched upon the topic just now, _batuchka_--these examinations, and so forth, sometimes perplex the magistrate much more than the man under suspicion. You said as much just now with as much sense as accuracy." (Raskolnikoff had made no statement of the kind.) "One gets confused, one loses the thread of the investigation. Yet, as far as our judicial customs go, I agree with you fully. Where, for instance, is there a man under suspicion of some kind or other, were it even the most thick-headed moujik, who does not know that the magistrate will commence by putting all sorts of out-of-the-way questions to take him off the scent (if I may be allowed to use your happy simile), and that then he suddenly gives him one between the eyes? A blow of the ax on his sinciput (if again I may be permitted to use your ingenious metaphor)? Hah, hah! And do you mean to say that when I spoke to you about quarters provided by the State, that--hah, hah! You are very caustic. But I won't revert to that again. By-and-by!--one remark produces another, one thought attracts another--but you were talking just now of the practice or form in vogue with the examining magistrate. But what is this form? You know as I do that in many cases the form means nothing at all. Occasionally a simple conversation, a friendly interview, brings about a more certain result. The practice or form will never die out--I can vouch for that; but what, after all, is the form, I ask once more? You can't compel an examining magistrate to be hampered or bound by it everlastingly. His duty or method is, in its way, one of the liberal professions or something very much like it."