"To what part of the country—oh, ah, I shall take them into the government of Kherson."
"Oh, that is one of the finest provinces in the Empire!" exclaimed the President, and expressed his high praise of the excellency of the soil in that province, and the richness of its steppes. "And have you sufficient land for the accommodation of your newly-acquired population?"
"Just sufficient for comfortable distribution among my new serfs."
"Have you a fine flowing river, or a brook?"
"A river. However, there is also a large brook." Saying this, Tchichikoff involuntarily looked at Sobakevitch, and though the other remained as cool and indifferent as before, nevertheless it seemed to him as if the following was as it were, written in the expression of his face. "Oh, what a falsehood! for it is not likely that you will have a river and a brook as well, when, perhaps you have not even a piece of land!"
[CHAPTER IX.]
Whilst a lively conversation continued to be carried on between the parties assembled in the President's office, the witnesses began to arrive one by one: among the earlier arrivals was a man already known to our reader, the winking Procurator; he was immediately followed by the Superintendant of the Medical Faculties, then came Truchatchevitch, Beguschikin, and all those whom Sobakevitch had enumerated as uselessly walking about on the face of the earth.
Many of them were total strangers to Tchichikoff, whilst the missing witnesses were easily supplied from the ranks of the employés in the offices, in fact there was rather a superfluity of them, for not only the son of the Proto-pope, Father Kyrila was present, but even the worthy old man himself. Every one of the required witnesses now began to sign their names on the various documents, not forgetting to append their rank or title. As for each individual signature, it was an original for itself as regards the execution of the letters which formed the names, and certainly it would have been very difficult indeed to find corresponding ones in the Russian alphabet.
The well-known individual, Ivan Antonovitch displayed considerable activity, and in a very short time, all the contracts of sale were duly booked and registered in the government ledger; according to the regulations, an impost of a half per cent was calculated on the whole, including the publication of the transaction in the "Ministerial Gazetteer," and at the conclusion of the business, Tchichikoff found that his expenses were but a mere trifle. The President even gave instructions, that one half only of the half per cent impost duty should be received from his friend; as for the other half, it was carried to the account of some other indifferent petitioner.