“Fancy the conceit of the fellow!” interrupted the clerk, who was also beginning to lose patience; “an apothecary’s assistant, simply an apothecary’s assistant, a wretched leech; and listen to him—fie upon you! you’re a high and mighty personage!”
“Yes, an apothecary’s assistant, and except for this apothecary’s assistant you’d have been rotting in the graveyard by now.—It was some devil drove me to cure him,” he added between his teeth.
“You cured me?—No, you tried to poison me; you dosed me with aloes,” the clerk put in.
“What was I to do if nothing but aloes had any effect on you?”
“The use of aloes is forbidden by the Board of Health,” pursued Nikolai. “I’ll lodge a complaint against you yet.—You tried to compass my death—that was what you did! But the Lord suffered it not.”
“Hush, now, that’s enough, gentlemen,” the cashier was beginning—
“Stand off!” bawled the clerk. “He tried to poison me! Do you understand that?”
“That’s very likely.—Listen, Nikolai Eremyitch,” Pavel began in despairing accents. “For the last time, I beg you.—You force me to it.—I can’t stand it any longer. Let us alone, do you hear? or else, by God, it’ll go ill with one or other of us—I mean with you!”
The fat man flew into a rage.
“I’m not afraid of you!” he shouted; “do you hear, milksop? I got the better of your father; I broke his horns—a warning to you; take care!”