Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol1.djvu/136

124 detest sleek gentlemen with hair properly cut or curled like a barber's block.

'Well, so how is it to be?' said Nozdryov after a brief pause, 'won't you play for the souls?'

'I have told you, my boy, that I don't play. I will buy them if you like.'

'I don't want to sell them: that wouldn't be acting like a friend. I am not going to make filthy lucre from the devil knows what. Playing for it is a different matter. Let us have one game anyway.'

'I have told you already I won't.'

'And you won't change?'

'I won't.'

'Well, I tell you what, let us have a game at draughts; if you win they are all yours. I have got lots, you know, that ought to be struck off the census list. Hey, Porfiry, bring the draughtboard here!'

'No need to trouble: I am not going to play.'

'But this isn't cards; there is no question of chance or deception about it: it all depends on skill, you know. I must warn you beforehand that I can't play a bit, in fact you ought to give me something.'

'Well, suppose I do,' Tchitchikov thought to himself. 'I will play draughts with him. I don't play badly, and it will be difficult for him to be up to any tricks at draughts.'

'Very well, I will play at draughts.'

'The souls against a hundred roubles!'

'Why? Fifty would be quite enough.'

'No, fifty is not much of a stake. I had better