He used to spend his time chiefly in playing preference with a greasy old pack of cards for stakes of a quarter-farthing with clerks.

But once, when she was being ill-treated, he went up (without inquiring into the cause) and seized one of the clerks by the collar and flung him out of a second-floor window.

It was not a case of chivalrous indignation at the sight of injured innocence; the whole operation took place in the midst of roars of laughter, and the one who laughed loudest was Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch himself.

As it all ended without harm, they were reconciled and began drinking punch.

But the injured innocent herself did not forget it.