table, with his legs tucked under him like a Turkish pasha.  His feet were bare, after the fashion of tailors as they sit at work; and the first thing which caught the eye was his thumb, with a deformed nail thick and strong as a turtle’s shell.  About Petrovich’s neck hung a skein of silk and thread, and upon his knees lay some old garment.  He had been trying unsuccessfully for three minutes to thread his needle, and was enraged at the darkness and even at the thread, growling in a low voice, “It won’t go through, the barbarian! you pricked me, you rascal!”

Akaky Akakiyevich was vexed at arriving at the precise moment when Petrovich was angry.  He liked to order something of Petrovich when he was a little downhearted, or, as his wife expressed it, “when he had settled himself with brandy, the one-eyed devil!” Under such circumstances Petrovich generally came down in his price very readily, and even bowed and returned thanks.  Afterwards, to be sure, his wife would come, complaining that her husband had been drunk, and so had fixed the price too low; but, if only a ten-kopek piece were added then the matter would be settled.  But now it appeared that Petrovich was in a sober condition, and therefore rough, taciturn, and inclined to demand, Satan only knows what price.  Akaky Akakiyevich felt this, and would gladly have beat a retreat, but he was in for it.  Petrovich screwed up his one eye very intently at him, and Akaky Akakiyevich involuntarily said, “How do you do, Petrovich?”

“I wish you a good morning, sir,” said Petrovich squinting at Akaky Akakiyevich’s hands, to see what sort of booty he had brought.

“Ah!  I—­to you, Petrovich, this—­” It must be known that Akaky Akakiyevich expressed himself chiefly by prepositions, adverbs, and scraps of phrases which had no meaning whatever.  If the matter was a very difficult one, he had a habit of never completing his sentences, so that frequently, having begun a phrase with the words, “This, in fact, is quite—­” he forgot to go on, thinking he had already finished it.

“What is it?” asked Petrovich, and with his one eye scanned Akaky Akakiyevich’s whole uniform from the collar down to the cuffs, the back, the tails and the button-holes, all of which were well known to him, since they were his own handiwork.  Such is the habit of tailors; it is the first thing they do on meeting one.

“But I, here, this—­Petrovich—­a cloak, cloth—­here you see, everywhere, in different places, it is quite strong—­it is a little dusty and looks old, but it is new, only here in one place it is a little—­on the back, and here on one of the shoulders, it is a little worn, yes, here on this shoulder it is a little—­do you see?  That is all.  And a little work—­”