how small shopkeepers walked); he sniffed cautiously at his own sleeve, and the lining of his cap—and frowned; he looked at himself in a little looking-glass hanging on the wall near the window, and shook his head; he certainly looked very unattractive. 'All the better, though,' he thought. Then he took up a few pamphlets, stuffed them in his skirt pocket, and murmured a few words to himself in the accent of a small shopkeeper. 'I fancy that's like it,' he thought again; 'but after all, what need of acting? my get-up will answer for me.' And at that point Nezhdanov recollected a German convict, who had had to run away right across Russia, and he spoke Russian badly, too; but thanks to a merchant's cap edged with cat's-skin, which he had bought in a provincial town, he was taken everywhere for a merchant, and had successfully made his way over the frontier.
At that instant Solomin came in.
'Aha! brother Alexey,' he cried; 'you're studying your part! Excuse me, brother; in that disguise one can't address you respectfully.'
'Oh, please do. . . . I'd meant to ask you to call me so.'
'Only it's awfully early yet; but, there, I suppose you want to get used to it. Well,
122
