In the last moment on board he had exchanged the shoes which he had been wearing for a pair of high waterproof boots. They had done him excellent service in the water and rain, in the wet sand of the shore, and on the way to the tenant-farm--but now! Where were the shoes? Certainly not in the traveling bag, into which he thought he had thrown them, but in which they refused to be found, although he finally, in his despair, turned the whole contents out and spread them about him. And this article of clothing here, which he had already taken up a dozen times and dropped again--the shirt bosoms were wanting! It was not the blue overcoat! It was the black evening coat, the most precious article of his wardrobe, which he was accustomed to wear only to dinners at the ship-owners', the consul's, and other formal occasions! Reinhold sprang for the bell--the rotten cord broke in his hand. He jerked the door open and peered into the hall--no servant was to be seen; he called first softly and then more loudly--no servant answered. And yet--what was to be done! The coarse woolen jacket which he had worn under his raincoat, and had, notwithstanding, got wet in places had been taken away by the servant to dry. "In a quarter of an hour," the man had said, "the Count will ask you to supper." Twenty minutes had already passed; he had heard distinctly that the President, who was quartered a few doors from his room, had passed through the hall to go downstairs; he would have to remain here in the most ridiculous imprisonment, or appear downstairs before the company in the most bizarre costume--water-boots and black dress suit--before the eyes of the President, whose long, lean figure, from the top of his small shapely head to his patent-leather tips, which he had worn even on board ship, was the image of the most painful precision--before the rigorous General, in his closely buttoned undress uniform--before the Count, who had already betrayed an inclination to doubt his social eligibility--before the ladies!--before her--before her mischievous brown eyes! "Very well," he concluded, "if I have been fool enough to follow the glances of these eyes then this shall be my punishment, I will now do penance--in a black dress coat and water-boots." With a jerk he pulled on the boots which he still held in his rigid left hand, regarding them from time to time with horror, and opened the door again, this time to go down the broad stairway, and with a steady step along the hall into the dining-room, the location of which he had already learned from the servant.