"Where have you been?" said Nosdrieff; but without awaiting a reply, he continued: "My dear fellow, I have just returned from a fair. Congratulate me! I have nearly ruined myself by gambling. Would you believe it, I never lost so much in my life before? And the result is, that I have been obliged to travel with common post-horses. Just look through the window, and convince yourself, my dear fellow!"
Here he with his hand turned Tchichikoff's head towards the window, and nearly made him hit himself against the framework.
"Do you see what miserable looking wretches they are? I can assure you they had every difficulty in dragging themselves along the road, and I was therefore obliged to get into that fellow's britchka."
With this polite remark, he pointed with his finger towards his travelling companion.
"Are you not yet acquainted? My brother-in-law, Mr. Muschnieff. I have been speaking to him of you, my dear Tchichikoff all the morning. I told him, mind, we are sure to meet that delightful gentleman, Pavel Ivanovitch. But, my dear fellow, if you could only imagine how much I have lost by gambling! Would you believe it, I lost not only four of my finest race-horses, but also a considerable amount in bank-notes—all gone I Now I have neither my watch nor chain."
Tchichikoff looked at him, and really found it was as he said, he had neither his watch nor his chain. It even seemed to him as if one of his whiskers was less frill than the other.
"And if I had had but twenty roubles more in my pocket at the time," continued Nosdrieff, "but the trifling sum of a twenty-rouble note, I should have won back again, all, no, not merely all, but I am sure, that at this moment I should have had thirty or forty thousand roubles more in my pocket-book, this I can affirm, upon my word, as a gentleman!"
"Now then, softly, you said the same then and there," said the fair man, "and when I gave you a fifty-rouble note, you lost it in no time."
"I should not have lost it; by Heaven, I should not have lost it, without a mistake of my own, I could not have lost it. If I had only doubled my stake after the parole, I should have ruined the croupier."
"However, you did nothing of the kind," added his brother-in-law.