'My, what a pig-headed fellow!' muttered the merchant. 'Then I'd better arrange it with the lady herself.'
'That's as you like,' answered the fat man; 'far better, I should say.
Why should you worry yourself, after all?… Much better, indeed!'
'Well, well! Nikolai Eremyitch. I lost my temper for a minute! That was nothing but talk.'
'No, really, why?…'
'Nonsense, I tell you…. I tell you I was joking. Well, take your three and a half; there's no doing anything with you.'
'I ought to have got four, but I was in too great a hurry—like an ass!' muttered the fat man.
'Then up there at the house, six and a half, Nikolai Eremyitch; the corn will be sold for six and a half?'
'Six and a half, as we said already.'
'Well, your hand on that then, Nikolai Eremyitch' (the merchant clapped his outstretched fingers into the clerk's palm). 'And good-bye, in God's name!' (The merchant got up.) 'So then, Nikolai Eremyitch, sir, I'll go now to your lady, and bid them send up my name, and so I'll say to her, "Nikolai Eremyitch," I'll say, "has made a bargain with me for six and a half."'
'That's what you must say, Gavrila Antonitch.'