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"You've got them at last?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laying his

finger on the paper. "Now, gentlemen...."

And the sitting of the board began.

"If they knew," he thought, bending his head with a significant

air as he listened to the report, "what a guilty little boy their

president was half an hour ago." And his eyes were laughing

during the reading of the report. Till two o'clock the sitting

would go on without a break, and at two o'clock there would be an

interval and luncheon.

It was not yet two, when the large glass doors of the boardroom

suddenly opened and someone came in.

All the officials sitting on the further side under the portrait

of the Tsar and the eagle, delighted at any distraction, looked

round at the door; but the doorkeeper standing at the door at

once drove out the intruder, and closed the glass door after him.