This called forth in him an aversion for the old man He could not reconcile his feelings and, perplexed, he smiled.
"Well, I have just been at Shchurov's," he said, coming to Mayakin and seating himself by the table.
Mayakin, in a greasy morning-gown, a counting-board in his hand, began to move about in his leather-covered arm-chair impatiently, and said with animation: "Pour out some tea for him, Lubava! Tell me, Foma, I must be in the City Council at nine o'clock; tell me all about it, make haste!" Smiling, Foma related to him how Shchurov suggested to rewrite the notes.
"Eh!" exclaimed Yakov Tarasovich regretfully, with a shake of the head.

"You've spoilt the whole mass for me, dear! How could you be so straightforward in your dealings with the man?
Psha! The devil drove me to send you there! I should have gone myself.

I would have turned him around my finger!" "Hardly! He says, 'I am an oak.'" "An oak?
And I am a saw.

An oak! An oak is a good tree, but its fruits are good for swine only.

So it comes out that an oak is simply a blockhead." "But it's all the same, we have to pay, anyway." "Clever people are in no hurry about this; while you are ready to run as fast as you can to pay the money.