"Veriga does," said Peredonov. "Yes, Veriga is an old man, but you, Ardalyon Borisitch, thank God, are in your prime." Peredonov smiled with self-satisfaction, looked in the mirror and said: "Of course, I shall live another hundred and fifty years." The cat sneezed under the bed. Varvara said with a smile: "There, even the cat's sneezing! That shows it's true." But Peredonov suddenly frowned. The cat now aroused dread in him and its sneezing seemed to him a sign of ominous cunning. "He'll sneeze something that's not wanted," he thought, and got under the bed and began to drive the cat out. The cat mewed savagely, pressed against the wall, and suddenly with a loud, piercing mew, jumped between Peredonov's hands and ran out of the room. "A Dutch devil," Peredonov abused the animal savagely. "He's certainly a devil," affirmed Varvara. "He's become altogether wild. He won't let himself be stroked, as if the devil had got into him." The Prepolovenskys sent for the bride's-men early in the morning. At ten o'clock all had gathered at Peredonov's. Grushina also came, and Sofya with her husband. They were handed vodka and the usual _zakouska._ Peredonov ate little and thought dejectedly as to how he could distinguish himself from Volodin. "He's curled like a sheep," he thought maliciously, and suddenly imagined that he too might comb his hair in a special way. He rose from the table and said: "You go on eating and drinking--I don't object; but I'll go to the hairdresser and I'll have my hair done in the Spanish style." "What is the Spanish style?" asked Routilov. "Wait and you'll see." When Peredonov went to get his hair trimmed, Varvara said: "He's always inventing new notions. He sees devils. If he only drank less gin, the cursed tippler!" Prepolovenskaya said with a sly smile: "Well, as soon as you are married, Ardalyon Borisitch will get his place and settle down." Grushina sniggered. She was amused by the secrecy of this wedding, and she was excited by an intense desire to create an ignominious spectacle of some sort and yet not be mixed up with it. On the day before she had whispered in an underhand way to her friends the place and hour of the wedding. And early that morning she had called in the blacksmith's younger son, had given him a five-kopeck piece, and hinted to him that towards evening he should wait outside the town where the newly married couple would pass, to throw rubbish at them. The boy gladly agreed and gave his sworn promise not to betray her. Grushina reminded him: "You did give away Cherepnin when they beat you." "We were fools," said the boy. "Now, let 'em hang us and we won't tell." And the boy, in confirmation of his oath, ate a small handful of loam. For this Grushina added another three kopecks.