"I should think he could buy!" Tcheprakov said of the engineer.
"See what he fleeces out of the contractors alone! He fleeces
everyone!"

Then he took me to dinner, deciding fussily that I should live with
him in the lodge, and have my meals from his mother.

"She is a bit stingy," he said, "but she won't charge you much."

It was very cramped in the little rooms in which his mother lived;
they were all, even the passage and the entry, piled up with furniture
which had been brought from the big house after the sale; and the
furniture was all old-fashioned mahogany. Madame Tcheprakov, a very
stout middle-aged lady with slanting Chinese eyes, was sitting in
a big arm-chair by the window, knitting a stocking. She received
me ceremoniously.

"This is Poloznev, mamma," Tcheprakov introduced me. "He is going
to serve here."

"Are you a nobleman?" she asked in a strange, disagreeable voice:
it seemed to me to sound as though fat were bubbling in her throat.

"Yes," I answered.

"Sit down."

The dinner was a poor one. Nothing was served but pies filled with
bitter curd, and milk soup. Elena Nikiforovna, who presided, kept