After filling for three years the post of president of one of the government boards at Moscow, Stepan Arkadyevitch had won the respect, as well as the liking, of his fellow-officials, subordinates, and superiors, and all who had had business with him.  The principal qualities in Stepan Arkadyevitch which had gained him this universal respect in the service consisted, in the first place, of his extreme indulgence for others, founded on a consciousness of his own shortcomings; secondly, of his perfect liberalism—­not the liberalism he read of in the papers, but the liberalism that was in his blood, in virtue of which he treated all men perfectly equally and exactly the same, whatever their fortune or calling might be; and thirdly—­the most important point—­his complete indifference to the business in which he was engaged, in consequence of which he was never carried away, and never made mistakes.

On reaching the offices of the board, Stepan Arkadyevitch, escorted by a deferential porter with a portfolio, went into his little private room, put on his uniform, and went into the boardroom.  The clerks and copyists all rose, greeting him with good-humored deference.  Stepan Arkadyevitch moved quickly, as ever, to his place, shook hands with his colleagues, and sat down.  He made a joke or two, and talked just as much as was consistent with due decorum, and began work.  No one knew better than Stepan Arkadyevitch how to hit on the exact line between freedom, simplicity, and official stiffness necessary for the agreeable conduct of business.  A secretary, with the good-humored deference common to every one in Stepan Arkadyevitch’s office, came up with papers, and began to speak in the familiar and easy tone which had been introduced by Stepan Arkadyevitch.

“We have succeeded in getting the information from the government department of Penza.  Here, would you care?....”

“You’ve got them at last?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laying his finger on the paper.  “Now, gentlemen....”

And the sitting of the board began.

“If they knew,” he thought, bending his head with a significant air as he listened to the report, “what a guilty little boy their president was half an hour ago.”  And his eyes were laughing during the reading of the report.  Till two o’clock the sitting would go on without a break, and at two o’clock there would be an interval and luncheon.

It was not yet two, when the large glass doors of the boardroom suddenly opened and someone came in.

All the officials sitting on the further side under the portrait of the Tsar and the eagle, delighted at any distraction, looked round at the door; but the doorkeeper standing at the door at once drove out the intruder, and closed the glass door after him.

When the case had been read through, Stepan Arkadyevitch got up and stretched, and by way of tribute to the liberalism of the times took out a cigarette in the boardroom and went into his private room.  Two of the members of the board, the old veteran in the service, Nikitin, and the Kammerjunker Grinevitch, went in with him.