“HE CAME ALONG DRAGGING ONE FOOT AFTER ANOTHER.”
“‘But why didn’t you give up the pills?’
“‘I was afraid to; they were illegal pills. I made them for you, as a friend, because I know your temperament.’
So then I asked him how did the whole thing happen; and he told me—
“‘That’s just what I can’t make out for the life of me. They tore off with me to the other end of the world; and then there came a telegram: ‘Send him back; its the wrong man.’ So they brought me back; and I began asking at the head office what it was all about. They poked and muddled and fussed over their papers, and at last they got to the root of the whole matter. And what do you think it was? What do you suppose was the cause of it all?’
“‘How should I know? I’ve hardly got to the bottom of my own case yet.’
‘Well,’ says he, ‘it was all because of that scoundrel Lipàtkin.’
“Lipàtkin, I must tell you, is a shopkeeper in our town; he’s just a regular bloodsucker, and nothing else. So I asked him what Lipàtkin could have to do with it; and he said—
“‘When I had the business at Sousàlov, I hired rooms from him, and it was in the contract that I should repair the roof. Well, if you remember, I didn’t get on; and so I left the town and didn’t repair the roof, because, you see, as I had paid beforehand, and went away four months before the time was up, I didn’t see that I was bound to do it. I gave up my business, and off I went. But old Lipàtka[[57]] thought he’d screw some money out of me; so he hunted up some pettifogging notary and scribbled off a complaint to the Medical Department at St. Petersburg, asking to have apothecary so-and-so forced to pay, and all the rest of it. Well, in the Medical Department they didn’t take the trouble to go into it; they just wrote off to the administration in my province. And when it got to the head office of the province, they mixed up one paper with another; and they wrote to the district office: ‘Summon the apothecary to explain.’ So when the paper got to the district, I wasn’t there, so they set to work and made up a third paper: ‘Find and forward apothecary.’ And off they sent it to Moscow. So in Moscow they hunted me up. As soon as ever I got to Moscow and handed in my passport to the police, of course they nabbed me. Well, then, of course there were those unlucky pills; they wanted to take them away, and I wouldn’t give them up, and tried to hide them. And so they began to suspect all sorts of things. And at last they got so muddled at the head office that they mixed everything up together, and somehow the devil got into the thing. And now that I’ve gone back to my lodgings, all my luggage is stolen, and I don’t know what on earth I am to do.’
“So I asked him what he was there for; and he said—