On getting home the examining magistrate found the doctor, Tyutyuev, there.  The doctor was sitting at the table and heaving deep sighs as he turned over the pages of the Neva.

“The things that are going on in the world,” he said, greeting the examining magistrate with a melancholy smile.  “Austria is at it again . . . and Gladstone, too, in a way. . . .”

Tchubikov flung his hat under the table and began to tremble.

“You devil of a skeleton!  Don’t bother me!  I’ve told you a thousand times over, don’t bother me with your politics!  It’s not the time for politics!  And as for you,” he turned upon Dyukovsky and shook his fist at him, “as for you. . . .  I’ll never forget it, as long as I live!”

“But the Swedish match, you know!  How could I tell. . . .”

“Choke yourself with your match!  Go away and don’t irritate me, or goodness knows what I shall do to you.  Don’t let me set eyes on you.”

Dyukovsky heaved a sigh, took his hat, and went out.

“I’ll go and get drunk!” he decided, as he went out of the gate, and he sauntered dejectedly towards the tavern.

When the superintendent’s wife got home from the bath-house she found her husband in the drawing-room.

“What did the examining magistrate come about?” asked her husband.

“He came to say that they had found Klyauzov.  Only fancy, they found him staying with another man’s wife.”

“Ah, Mark Ivanitch, Mark Ivanitch!” sighed the police superintendent, turning up his eyes.  “I told you that dissipation would lead to no good!  I told you so—­you wouldn’t heed me!”