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"What next? What did you rave about? What people do rave

about.... Well, brother, now I must not lose time. To work." He

got up from the table and took up his cap.

"What did I rave about?"

"How he keeps on! Are you afraid of having let out some secret?

Don't worry yourself; you said nothing about a countess. But you

said a lot about a bulldog, and about ear-rings and chains, and

about Krestovsky Island, and some porter, and Nikodim Fomitch and

Ilya Petrovitch, the assistant superintendent. And another thing

that was of special interest to you was your own sock. You

whined, 'Give me my sock.' Zametov hunted all about your room for

your socks, and with his own scented, ring-bedecked fingers he

gave you the rag. And only then were you comforted, and for the

next twenty-four hours you held the wretched thing in your hand;

we could not get it from you. It is most likely somewhere under

your quilt at this moment. And then you asked so piteously for

fringe for your trousers. We tried to find out what sort of

fringe, but we could not make it out. Now to business! Here are

thirty-five roubles; I take ten of them, and shall give you an

account of them in an hour or two.