“I need hardly say,” said Mr. Petrokine, “that Gustave Berger, the English agent, is now honoring us with his presence. He is young, indeed, Alexis,” he continued to my pale-faced neighbor, “and yet he is of European reputation.”
“Come, draw it mild!” thought I, adding aloud, “If you refer to me, sir, though I am indeed acting as English agent, my name is not Berger, but Robinson—Mr. Tom Robinson, at your service.”
A laugh ran round the table.
“So be it, so be it,” said the man they called Alexis. “I commend your discretion, most honored sir. One cannot be too careful. Preserve your English sobriquet by all means. I regret that any painful duty should be performed upon this auspicious evening; but the rules of our association must be preserved at any cost to our feelings, and a dismissal is inevitable to-night.”
“What the deuce is the fellow driving at?” thought I. “What is it to me if he does give his servant the sack? This Dimidoff, wherever he is, seems to keep a private lunatic asylum.”
“Take out the gag!” The words fairly shot through me, and I started in my chair. It was Petrokine who spoke. For the first time I noticed that a burly stout man, sitting at the other end of the table, had his arms tied behind his chair and a handkerchief round his mouth. A horrible suspicion began to creep into my heart. Where was I? Was I in Mr. Dimidoff’s? Who were these men, with their strange words?
“Take out the gag!” repeated Petrokine; and the handkerchief was removed.
“Now, Paul Ivanovitch,” said he, “what have you to say before you go?”
“Not a dismissal, sirs,” he pleaded; “not a dismissal: anything but that! I will go into some distant land, and my mouth shall be closed forever. I will do anything that the society asks, but pray, pray do not dismiss me.”
“You know our laws, and you know your crime,” said Alexis, in a cold, harsh voice. “Who drove us from Odessa by his false tongue and his double face? Who wrote the anonymous letter to the Governor? Who cut the wire that would have destroyed the arch-tyrant? You did, Paul Ivanovitch; and you must die.”