USTINYA NAUMOVNA.  Of course.  Well, what do you know?

PODKHALYUZIN.  Here’s what, Ustinya Naumovna:  isn’t it possible to throw over that suitor you’ve found, ma’am?

USTINYA NAUMOVNA.  What’s the matter with you; are you gone daft?

PODKHALYUZIN.  Gone daft nothing, ma’am!  But if you want to have a heart-to-heart talk, honor bright, ma’am; then here’s the sort of thing it is, ma’am:  at my house there’s a certain Russian merchant I know, who is very much in love with Olimpiada Samsonovna, ma’am.  “No matter what I have to give,” says he, “so long as I get married,” says he; “I shan’t grudge any sum.”

USTINYA NAUMOVNA.  Why didn’t you tell me about that before, my jewel?

PODKHALYUZIN.  There was nothing to tell for the good reason that I only just now found out about it, ma’am.

USTINYA NAUMOVNA.  But it’s late now, my jewel!

PODKHALYUZIN.  And what a suitor he is, Ustinya Naumovna!  He’ll shower you with gold from head to foot, ma’am; he’ll have a cloak made for you out of live sables.

USTINYA NAUMOVNA.  But, my dear, it’s impossible!  I’d be tickled to death, but I’ve given my word.

PODKHALYUZIN.  Just as you please, ma’am!  But if you betroth her to the other fellow, you’ll bring such bad luck upon yourself, that you’ll not get clear afterwards!

USTINYA NAUMOVNA.  But just consider yourself, how’ll I have the nerve to show my face before Samson Silych?  I gave it to him hot and heavy:  that the fellow is rich, and handsome, and so much in love that he is half dead; and now what’ll I say?  You know yourself what a fellow Samson Silych is; you see he’ll pull my cap over my ears before you know it.

PODKHALYUZIN.  Pull your cap nothing, ma’am!

USTINYA NAUMOVNA.  And I’ve got the girl all worked up.  Twice a day she sends to me and asks:  “What’s the matter with my suitor?” and, “What’s he like?”

PODKHALYUZIN.  But don’t you run away from your own good fortune, Ustinya Naumovna.  Do you want two thousand rubles and a sable cloak for merely arranging this wedding, ma’am?  But let our understanding about the match be private.  I tell you, ma’am, that this suitor’s such a sort as you’ve never seen; there’s only one thing, ma’am:  he’s not of aristocratic origin.

USTINYA NAUMOVNA.  But is she an aristocrat?  Pity if she is, my jewel!  That’s the way things go these days:  every peasant girl is trying to worm her way into the nobility.—­Now, although this here Olimpiada Samsonovna—­of course, God give her good health—­gives presents like a princess, yet, believe me, her origin’s no better than ours.  Her father, Samson Silych, dealt in leather mittens on the Balchug; respectable people called him Sammy, and fed him with thumps behind the ears.  And her mother, Agrafena Kondratyevna, was little more than a peasant girl, and he got her from Preobrazhenskoye.  They got together some capital, climbed into the merchant class—­so