Nevertheless, I am ready to add another five kopecks, and so to make it that each runaway serf shall cost me, in all, thirty kopecks." "As you please, dear sir.

Yet stretch another point, and throw in another two kopecks." "Pardon me, but I cannot.

How many runaway serfs did you say that you possess?
Seventy ?" "No; seventy-eight." "Seventy-eight souls at thirty kopecks each will amount to--to--" only for a moment did our hero halt, since he was strong in his arithmetic, "-- will amount to twenty-four roubles, ninety-six kopecks." [28] With that he requested Plushkin to make out the receipt, and then handed him the money.

Plushkin took it in both hands, bore it to a bureau with as much caution as though he were carrying a liquid which might at any moment splash him in the face, and, arrived at the bureau, and glancing round once more, carefully packed the cash in one of his money bags, where, doubtless, it was destined to lie buried until, to the intense joy of his daughters and his son-in-law (and, perhaps, of the captain who claimed kinship with him), he should himself receive burial at the hands of Fathers Carp and Polycarp, the two priests attached to his village.

Lastly, the money concealed, Plushkin re-seated himself in the armchair, and seemed at a loss for further material for conversation.
"Are you thinking of starting ?" at length he inquired, on seeing Chichikov making a trifling movement, though the movement was only to extract from his pocket a handkerchief.