To begin with, we both try to show each other that we are extraordinarily polite and highly delighted to see each other. I make him sit down in an easy-chair, and he makes me sit down; as we do so, we cautiously pat each other on the back, touch each other's buttons, and it looks as though we were feeling each other and afraid of scorching our fingers. Both of us laugh, though we say nothing amusing. When we are seated we bow our heads towards each other and begin talking in subdued voices.A strange rumour!
     Dr. Andrey Yefimitch Ragin is a strange man in his way. They say that when he was young he was very religious, and prepared himself for a clerical career, and that when he had finished his studies at the high school in 1863 he intended to enter a theological academy, but that his father, a surgeon and doctor of medicine, jeered at him and declared point-blank that he would disown him if he became a priest. How far this is true I don't know, but Andrey Yefimitch himself has more than once confessed that he has never had a natural bent for medicine or science in general.
"Is that you, Johnny?"
     "Yes, sir."
     "You needn't ship the early mail -- nor ANY mail; wait till I tell you."
     "It's already gone, sir."
     "GONE?" It had the sound of an unspeakable disappointment in it.
     "Yes, sir. Time-table for Brixton and all the towns beyond changed to-day, sir -- had to get the papers in twenty minutes earlier than common. I had to rush; if I had been two minutes later --"
     The men turned and walked slowly away, not waiting to hear the rest. Neither of them spoke during ten minutes; then Cox said, in a vexed tone,
     "What possessed you to be in such a hurry, I can't make out."
     The answer was humble enough:
     "I see it now, but somehow I never thought, you know, until it was too late. But the next time --"