_Avis au lecteur."_ "Do you mean it?
And can it be so ?" Lembke articulated mistrustfully.
"Yulia Mihailovna told me that from what she heard from Petersburg he is a man acting on some sort of instructions, so to speak...." "I know nothing about it; I know nothing, absolutely nothing.

_Adieu.
Avis au lecteur!_" Abruptly and obviously Pyotr Stepanovitch declined to discuss it.
He hurried to the door.
"Stay, Pyotr Stepanovitch, stay," cried Lembke.

"One other tiny matter and I won't detain you." He drew an envelope out of a table drawer.
"Here is a little specimen of the same kind of thing, and I let you see it to show how completely I trust you.

Here, and tell me your opinion." In the envelope was a letter, a strange anonymous letter addressed to Lembke and only received by him the day before.

With intense vexation Pyotr Stepanovitch read as follows: "Your excellency,--For such you are by rank.