"How do you do, Yuri[5] Alexievich? Is there any news? Shurochka, give him some tea. Excuse me, but I am, as you see, hard at work." "What a fool I am!" cried poor Romashov to himself. "What business had I here?" Then he added out loud: "Bad news. There are ugly reports circulating at mess with regard to Lieutenant-Colonel Liech. He is said to have been as tight as a drum. The resentment in the regiment is widespread, and a very searching inquiry is demanded. Epifanov has been arrested." "Oh!" remarked Nikoläiev in an absent tone. "But excuse my interruption. You don't say so!" "I, too, have been rewarded with four days. But that is stale news." Romashov thought at that moment that his voice sounded peculiar and unnatural, as if he were being throttled. "What a wretched creature I am in their eyes!" thought he, but in the next moment consoled himself by the help of that forced special pleading to which weak and timid persons usually have recourse in similar predicaments. "Such you always are; something goes wrong; you feel confused, embarrassed, and at once you fondly imagine that others notice it, though only you yourself can be clearly conscious of it," etc., etc. He sat down on a chair near Shurochka, whose quick crochet needle was in full swing again. She never sat idle, and all the table-covers, lamp-shades, and lace curtains were the product of her busy fingers. Romashov cautiously took up the long crochet threads hanging from the ball, and said-- "What do you call this sort of work?" "Guipure. This is the tenth time you have asked me that." Shurochka glanced quickly at him, and then let her eyes fall on her work; but before long she looked up again and laughed. "Now then, now then, Yuri Alexievich, don't sit there pouting. 'Straighten your back!' and 'Head up!' Isn't that how you give your commands?" But Romashov only sighed and looked out of the corner of his eye at Nikoläiev's brawny neck, the whiteness of which was thrown into strong relief by the grey collar of his old coat. "By Jove! Vladimir Yefimovich is a lucky dog. Next summer he's going to St. Petersburg, and will rise to the heights of the Academy." "Oh, that remains to be seen," remarked Shurochka, somewhat tartly, looking in her husband's direction. "He has twice been plucked at his examination, and with rather poor credit to himself has had to return to his regiment. This will be his last chance." Nikoläiev turned round suddenly; his handsome, soldierly, moustached face flushed deeply, and his big dark eyes glittered with rage. "Don't talk rubbish, Shurochka. When I say I shall pass my examination, I shall pass it, and that's enough about it." He struck the side of his outstretched hand violently on the table. "You are always croaking. I said I should--"