The waiter took hold of Ivan Mironov; at that moment the policeman arrived.  Looking very important, he inquired what had happened, and unhesitatingly gave his orders: 

“Take him to the police-station.”

As to the coupon, the policeman put it in his pocket; Ivan Mironov, together with his horse, was brought to the nearest station.

VII

Ivan Mironov had to spend the night in the police-station, in the company of drunkards and thieves.  It was noon of the next day when he was summoned to the police officer; put through a close examination, and sent in the care of a policeman to Eugene Mihailovich’s shop.  Ivan Mironov remembered the street and the house.

The policeman asked for the shopkeeper, showed him the coupon and confronted him with Ivan Mironov, who declared that he had received the coupon in that very place.  Eugene Mihailovich at once assumed a very severe and astonished air.

“You are mad, my good fellow,” he said.  “I have never seen this man before in my life,” he added, addressing the policeman.

“It is a sin, sir,” said Ivan Mironov.  “Think of the hour when you will die.”

“Why, you must be dreaming!  You have sold your firewood to some one else,” said Eugene Mihailovich.  “But wait a minute.  I will go and ask my wife whether she bought any firewood yesterday.”  Eugene Mihailovich left them and immediately called the yard-porter Vassily, a strong, handsome, quick, cheerful, well-dressed man.

He told Vassily that if any one should inquire where the last supply of firewood was bought, he was to say they’d got it from the stores, and not from a peasant in the street.

“A peasant has come,” he said to Vassily, “who has declared to the police that I gave him a forged coupon.  He is a fool and talks nonsense, but you, are a clever man.  Mind you say that we always get the firewood from the stores.  And, by the way, I’ve been thinking some time of giving you money to buy a new jacket,” added Eugene Mihailovich, and gave the man five roubles.  Vassily looking with pleasure first at the five rouble note, then at Eugene Mihailovich’s face, shook his head and smiled.

“I know, those peasant folks have no brains.  Ignorance, of course.  Don’t you be uneasy.  I know what I have to say.”

Ivan Mironov, with tears in his eyes, implored Eugene Mihailovich over and over again to acknowledge the coupon he had given him, and the yard-porter to believe what he said, but it proved quite useless; they both insisted that they had never bought firewood from a peasant in the street.  The policeman brought Ivan Mironov back to the police-station, and he was charged with forging the coupon.  Only after taking the advice of a drunken office clerk in the same cell with him, and bribing the police officer with five roubles, did Ivan Mironov get out of jail, without the coupon, and with only seven roubles left out of the twenty-five he had the day before.