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had scarcely crossed the threshold when Paklin leaped up from his chair, and, rushing up to Nezhdanov, began to congratulate him.

'Well, you have made a fine catch!' he declared, giggling and tapping with his feet. 'Why, do you know who that is? Sipyagin, every one knows him, a kammerherr, a pillar of society of a sort, a future minister!'

'I know absolutely nothing of him,' Nezhdanov declared sullenly.

Paklin threw up his arms in despair.

'That's just our misfortune, Alexey Dmitritch, that we know no one! We want to produce an effect, we want to turn the whole world upside down, but we live outside that world, we only have to do with two or three friends, and go revolving in a narrow little circle'

'I beg your pardon,' interposed Nezhdanov: 'that's not true. We only don't care to