"The Devil! it _is_ cold!" The other growled agreement and said thoughtfully: "Where should we warm ourselves if it weren't for the law courts and the libraries?" The dark man shrugged his shoulders. Ilya looked at them more carefully and listened. He saw they were loafers--people who passed their lives in various "shady" businesses either cheating the peasants, for whom they drew up petitions or papers of different kinds, or going from house to house with begging letters. Once he had feared them, now they roused his curiosity. "What's the good of these people? Yet, they live." A pair of pigeons settled on the pavement near the steps. The man with the bent head swayed from one foot to the other and began to circle round the birds, making a loud cooing noise. "Pfui!" whistled the dark little man sharply. The man in the waistcoat started and looked up; his face was blue and swollen, and his eyes glassy. "I can't stand pigeons," cried the little man watching them as they flew away. "Fat--as rich tradesmen--and their beastly cooing! Are you summoned?" he asked Ilya, unexpectedly. "No." "You're not called?" "No." The dark man looked Ilya up and down and growled: "That's strange." "What is strange?" asked Ilya, laughing. "You have the kind of face," answered the little man speaking quickly. "Ah, they're opening." He was one of the first to enter the building. Struck by his remark Ilya followed him and in the doorway pushed the long-haired man with his shoulder. "Don't shove so, you clown!" said the man half aloud, and giving Ilya a push in his turn passed in first. The push did not anger Ilya, but only astonished him. "Odd!" he thought. "He pushes in as if he were a great lord and must go in first, and he's only just a poor wretch."