Lembke stopped.
"Who is this ?" he muttered, puzzled, as if he were questioning the chief of police, though he did not turn his head towards him, and was all the time gazing at Stepan Trofimovitch.
"Retired college assessor, Stepan Trofimovitch Verhovensky, your Excellency," answered Stepan Trofimovitch, bowing majestically.

His Excellency went on staring at him with a very blank expression, however.
"What is it ?" And with the curtness of a great official he turned his ear to Stepan Trofimovitch with disdainful impatience, taking him for an ordinary person with a written petition of some sort.
"I was visited and my house was searched to-day by an official acting in your Excellency's name; therefore I am desirous..." "Name?
Name ?" Lembke asked impatiently, seeming suddenly to have an inkling of something.

Stepan Trofimovitch repeated his name still more majestically.
"A-a-ah! It's...

that hotbed...

You have shown yourself, sir, in such a light....