grandmother asked after a short silence, and she dropped her eyeglass.
Baburin was disconcerted. 'What are you pleased to wish?' he muttered.
'I ask you: where have you studied? You use such learned words.'
'I. . .my education. . .' Baburin was beginning.
My grandmother shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. 'It seems,' she interrupted, "that my arrangements are not to your liking. That is of absolutely no consequence to me--among my subjects I am sovereign, and answerable to no one for them, only I am not accustomed to having people criticising me in my presence, and meddling in what is not their business. I have no need of learned philanthropists of nondescript position; I want servants to do my will without question. So I always lived till you came, and so I shall live after you've gone. You do not suit me; you are discharged. Nikolai Antonov,' my grandmother turned to the steward, 'pay this man off; and let him be gone before dinner-time to-day! D' you hear? Don't put me into a passion. And the other too. . .the fool that lives with him-to be sent off too. What's Yermilka waiting for?' she added, looking out of window, 'I have seen him. What more does he want?' My grandmother shook her handkerchief in the direction of the
