"You—you minx—you flatter-cat, you little serpent!" cried Akulina, speaking three languages at once in her excitement. "Go—get along—go to your work—"
"No, no, stay!" exclaimed the Cossack authoritatively. "Do you know what this is?" he asked of all present again. "Our good mistress, here, has for some reason or other been trying to make the Count worse by having sham letters posted to him from home—"
"It is a lie! A base, abominable lie! Turn the man out, Christian Gregorovitch! Turn him out, or send for the police."
"Turn him out yourself," answered the tobacconist phlegmatically.
"Posted to him from home," continued the Cossack, "and telling him that his father and brother are dead and that he has come into property and the like. What do you think of that?"
"It is a shame," growled Dumnoff, beginning to understand.
The girl laughed foolishly.
"I swear to you," began Akulina, crimson with anger. "I swear to you by all—"
"Customers, customers!" exclaimed Fischelowitz in a stage whisper. "Quiet, I tell you!" He made a rush for the other side of the counter, and briskly assumed his professional smile. The others fell back into the corners.
Two gentlemen in black entered the shop. The one was a stout, angry-looking person of middle age, very dark, and very full about the lower part of the face, which was not concealed by the closely cut black beard. His companion was a diminutive little man, very thin and very spruce, not less than fifty years old. His face was entirely shaved and was deeply marked with lines and furrows. A pair of piercing grey eyes looked through big gold-rimmed spectacles. As he took off his hat, a few thin, sandy-coloured locks fluttered a little and then settled themselves upon the smooth surface of his cranium, like autumn leaves falling upon a marble statue in a garden.