inhuman manner; that he had applied to him, in order that he might, in
some way, by his intermediation--that he might enter into
correspondence with the chief of police, and find the cloak.

For some inexplicable reason, this conduct seemed familiar to the
prominent personage.

"What, my dear sir!" he said abruptly, "are you not acquainted with
etiquette? To whom have you come? Don't you know how such matters are
managed? You should first have presented a petition to the office. It
would have gone to the head of the department, then to the chief of
the division, then it would have been handed over to the secretary,
and the secretary would have given it to me."

"But, your excellency," said Akaky Akakiyevich, trying to collect his
small handful of wits, and conscious at the same time that he was
perspiring terribly, "I, your excellency, presumed to trouble you
because secretaries--are an untrustworthy race."

"What, what, what!" said the important personage. "Where did you get
such courage? Where did you get such ideas? What impudence towards
their chiefs and superiors has spread among the young generation!" The
prominent personage apparently had not observed that Akaky Akakiyevich
was already in the neighbourhood of fifty. If he could be called a
young man, it must have been in comparison with some one who was
seventy. "Do you know to whom you are speaking? Do you realise who is
standing before you? Do you realise it? Do you realise it, I ask you!"
Then he stamped his foot, and raised his voice to such a pitch that it
would have frightened even a different man from Akaky Akakiyevich.